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200 climbers expected to make a dash for Everest this weekend

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Press Trust of India Kathmandu

"Some 200 climbers are expected to make a rush for the peak on Friday and Saturday, over the weekend," the Nepalese tourism ministry officials said, adding that this could cause an almost "traffic jam" on the knife-edged jagged Everest ridge.

The officials said there were far fewer climbers attempting the summit last week and yet the traffic of the climbers caused four deaths.

A 61-year old German doctor, a South Korean, a Nepalese-born Canadian woman and a Chinese climber died while returning from the summit in one of the worst tragedies on Everest.

The rush of climbers causes a bottle-neck at Hillary-step, a rockface near the summit, where most of the climbers have to use fixed rope to both ascend and descend from the peak.

 

"The climbers have to rely on a single rope for to and fro traffic and this causes hours of delay, sometimes fatal in cases," the official said.

The area over 8,000 metres high is nicknamed the "death-zone" because of its steep slopes, jet speed winds and low oxygen levels.

The Nepalese officials said, it was difficult to control the rush as climbers were attempting to scale the peak from the south-east ridge in Nepal as well as the northern ridge in Tibet in China.

He said to control the number of climbers at extreme heights, the government is planning to give climbers a tracking device to monitor their movements.

Nearly 4,000 climbers have scaled Everest since Hillary and Tenzing Norgay blazed the trail in 1953. Some 225 climbers have died attempting this.

  

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First Published: May 22 2012 | 6:16 PM IST

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