More than 30 sick climbers have been evacuated from the foot of Mount Everest, due to raising fears that a hoped-for bumper season on the world’s highest mountain may be ruined due to Covid-19.
A devastating blow was suffered by Nepal’s tourism last year when the pandemic prompted a complete lockdown of its summits that costed millions of losses in revenue, reported AFP.
However, this year the quarantine rules have been relaxed by the authorities to incite back the foreign adventures and also have issued climbing permits to more than 400 people that is the new record.
An Everest permit alone costs $11,000 and climbers pay upward of $40,000 for an expedition.
But the warmer weather that ushers in safer conditions for scaling Nepal’s dangerous, with active cases in the country rising six-fold in the last two weeks, the snow-capped peaks has coincided with a deadly second wave of Covid-19 infections.
Erlend Ness a Norwegian climber last month spent his two nights sleeping in his tent at base camp, while he was unsure of what was making him ill.
“I was evacuated to Kathmandu and was tested. My result was positive for Covid,” he told AFP. He became the first climber with an Everest permit to confirm his infection.
“I think I’m not the only one… Every team at the base camp knows the risk of Covid is there and they have to be careful, they should be careful,” he said.
However, Gina Marie Han-Lee, fellow climber decided to abandon her expedition last week due to the fears of the disease that it was spreading around the base camp.
the US citizen wrote on her Facebook page on April 29.
Meanwhile, the US citizen wrote on her Facebook page on April 29, “I have taken a helicopter out of EBC (Everest base camp) back to Kathmandu after 1 day. The Covid situation at EBC is a total shitstorm. I had no clue what I was flying into.”
“It was a heartbreaking decision but I’m putting my health first. Covid at a high altitude does not sound like something I want to play with.”
– ‘We don’t have tests here’ –
However, the officials at a health clinic catered the climbers, say more than 30 people have been flown off the camp in recent weeks.
After returning to the capital Kathmandu, at least two people have tested positive for Covid-19. But the government is yet to confirm a single Covid case on Everest.
Nepal’s tourism department chief Rudra Singh Tamang said, “Some evacuated may have tested positive in Kathmandu. They did not test at the base camp, so we cannot be sure where they got infected.”
However, “They do not have the capacity to test for the disease, say the Health professionals at the camp.
“We have permission to only work as a clinic so we don’t have tests here. We have made requests but nothing has happened yet,” a doctor there said.
At the bustling tent city at the foot of Everest more than a thousand people are typically camped over, including foreign climbers and the teams of Nepali guides that escort them to the peak.
After expedition groups were asked to keep to themselves and avoid socialising with others, the usual reverie and loud communal parties are not present this year.
The customary religious ceremonies and prayers for safe expedition also have been turned into private affairs.
“We are taking all precautions possible to make sure that there are no infections,” said Tashi Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, the largest climbing agency at Everest.
“We are not visiting other tents, and even groups within the camps are not mixing.”
– ‘We are very scared’ –
Over the last two weeks more than 400 people in Nepal have died after contracting Coronavirus infection.
By the sudden surge in coronavirus cases, the country’s health system has been overwhelmed, with hospitals filling up fast and relatives of patients requesting for medicine and intensive care beds.
Climbers on peaks elsewhere in the country have also run into problems.
An expedition on Dhaulagiri, the seventh highest mountain in the world, is in limbo after at least three members tested positive for Covid this week.
Nine are being evacuated and others are being tested, the head of their expedition said.
Breathing is already difficult at high altitudes so any coronavirus outbreak among climbing groups could pose severe health risks
Evacuating ill climbers from the remote peaks poses a major logistical challenge.
“We are very scared, there are many rumours and we don’t know what is really going on,” said Harshvardhan Joshi, an Indian climber hoping to summit Everest.
“What if someone shows symptoms after reaching a higher camp?”
