KATMANDU, Nepal — A blizzard and avalanche in Nepal’s storied Himalayas climbing region have killed at least 20 people, nearly half of them foreigners, in the midst of the October trekking season, district officials said Wednesday.
Dozens were reported missing.
The death toll eclipsed the last major mountaineering disaster in the Himalayas, when 16 Sherpas died in an avalanche six months ago on Mount Everest, the worst climbing calamity in Everest’s history.
It was believed that as many as 200 trekkers were caught by the latest weather, which began bearing down on the Himalayas on Tuesday, part of the stormy aftermath
of a cyclone that ravaged India’s eastern coast two days earlier.
While 22 people were rescued Wednesday, heavy accumulations of snow — more than 2 feet in some areas — forced the Nepal army and police to suspend further rescue actions until Thursday.
The army, guided by trekkers they had rescued, recovered 12 bodies near Thorong La, a pass along a popular trekking circuit, according to the Mustang chief district officer, Baburam Bhandari.
The dead included two Israeli tourists and two Poles, as well as eight Nepali trekkers who were trapped in a blizzard.
In Manang district, four Canadians and one Indian trekker were buried in an avalanche along the mountain pass.
Their bodies will take days to dig out of the snow, said Devendra Lamichhane, the chief district officer in Manang.