Two adventurers die on Mount Everest

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ONLY hours after an Australia woman climbed Mount Everest for the second time in two years, two other adventurers died while attempting to summit the world’s tallest mountain.

Members of their expedition teams reported a Japanese climber died Monday, local time, and a Macedonian died on Sunday, said Nepal mountaineering official Gyanendra Shrestha, who is stationed at Everest’s base camp during the climbing season and received the reports of the deaths.

The Japanese climber was identified as 35-year-old Nobukazu Kuriki and the Macedonian was 63-year-old Gjeorgi Petkov.

The deaths came just hours after Australian Alyssa Azar conquered Mount Everest for the second time in two years.

Queenslander Azar, 21, from Toowoomba, made history as the youngest woman — and the youngest Australian — to ever make it to the world’s highest summit (8848m) twice, when she scaled the summit on Saturday.

Her first ascent was almost two years ago to the day, on May 21, 2016, from the Nepalese side of the mountain.

The route she took this time, from Tibet, is considered to be more challenging.

Kuriki was a known mountaineer who climbed many mountains and made several attempts on Everest. He was not successful in climbing Everest and lost most of his fingers due to frostbite during an attempt in 2012.

Shrestha said Kuriki’s body was around the Camp 2 area while the Macedonian climber’s body was at a higher elevation.

Further details were not available.

Some 340 foreign climbers and their Sherpa guides are attempting to scale Everest this month and many succeeded in the past week during good weather. Teams have to end their attempts by the end of this month as weather conditions deteriorate.

AUSTRALIA DIES ON MOUNT EVEREST
In May last year, a 54-year-old Australian man died while descending Mt Everest in Tibet after suffering from altitude sickness.

Francesco Enrico Marchetti was killed as he climbed down to the lower camps from the North Col route.

“The climber breathed his last at an altitude of 7500m on the Tibetan side when he was descending to lower camps after suffering from altitude sickness at around 8000m on the mountain,” officials at the Tibet Mountaineering Association said.

According to Facebook, Marchetti lived in Mackay, Queensland with his wife and had studied vocational teaching at Griffith University.

He shared photos of him and his wife on various climbing expeditions.

Two other climbers died on the world’s tallest peak over the same weekend.

Roland Yearwood, 50, from the US state of Alabama died near the summit of Mt Everest following a successful ascent, expedition organisers said. They did not have other details about his death.

Yearwood, a doctor, reportedly survived the earthquake-triggered avalanche in 2015.

Slovak mountaineer Vladimir Strba also died, but little was known about his death.

The 2015 season was scrapped after 19 climbers were killed and 61 injured by an avalanche at the base camp triggered by a massive earthquake. In 2014, an avalanche at the Khumbu Icefall killed 16 Sherpa guides.

More than 290 people have died trying to climb Mount Everest.