Tragedy in scramble to reach Everest’s peak
More than 50 climbers have scaled Mount Everest in a two day rush to the top of the world’s highest peak before the end of the climbing season.
There was one reported fatality - a 56-year-old Austrian fell to his death when he was just 165 feet from the 29,035 summit.
A flurry of expeditions headed for the summit of the world’s highest mountain on Wednesday and Thursday, taking advantage of a break in high winds and heavy snow that for days had forced climbers to postpone their bid for the top.
A 15-year-old Sherpa boy became the youngest climber to reach the top.
Temba Tsheri - who lost five fingers from frostbite during an attempt to climb Everest last year - succeeded in reaching the top on Tuesday morning.
Tsheri broke the record set by another Nepalese climber, Shambu Tamang, in 1973 when he climbed Mount Everest at the age of 17.
The mountaineering season in Nepal ends on May 31, when climbers must return from the mountains before monsoon rains in the region bring heavy snow.
Everest has been climbed more than 800 times since the first documented climb by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953. More than 180 people have been killed on its unpredictable slopes.
