A Nepali climber Binod Babu Bastakoti and a Kenyan climber Cheruiyot Kirui have been found dead near the Mount Everest Summit, officials at the Everest Base Camp confirmed. Both climbers had been missing for days. Meanwhile, a guide named Nawang Sherpa, who was accompanying Kenyan climber Kirui in the death zone, is still missing.
Officials said Bastakoti died at Camp IV while descending, and Kirui was found by rescuers from the Seven Summit Treks, a few meters below the summit of Mount Everest. According to expedition organising company Narbin Magar of Booking Own Pvt. Ltd, the Nepali climber died above Camp IV on Wednesday after suffering from altitude sickness at around 8,300 metres, while descending from the summit point.
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As per the report, the Kenyan national was trying to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen and went off the radio from Bishop Rock.
“Nawang had last communicated with the base camp officials from Bishop Rock that Kirui refused to return and even consumed bottled oxygen but showed abnormal behaviour,” one of the officials from the search team said.
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Kenyan climber Kirui had become the first African to summit a peak above 8,000 metres without supplemental oxygen when he scaled Mt. Manaslu (8,163m) in September 2023. He was a well recognised mountain climber known for several speed ascents of Mt. Kilimanjaro (5,895m), where he completed the round trip in just 15 hours. He also summited Mt. Kenya (5,199m) more than 20 times, setting course records on its three main routes.
Meanwhile, recently, a Pakistani mountaineer, Sirbaz Khan climbed Mount Everest without using any supplementary oxygen. Khan became the only second Pakistani to scale the highest peak in the world without using oxygen.
