Nepal avalanche kills 15 expedition workers at Himlung base camp

An avalanche tore through a mountain base camp in central Nepal early Sunday morning, killing at least 15 expedition workers in what has become one of the deadliest mountaineering disasters the country has seen in recent years. The avalanche struck the base camp of Himlung, a 7,126-metre peak situated near the Chinese border, while Nepali workers were in the midst of routine preparation—pitching tents and securing ropes for expeditions that would come later. The foreign climbers who had hired them had not yet arrived at the site.

Rescue teams began the grim work of recovery immediately, but the scale of the disaster became clear only as the days unfolded. A team of eleven rescuers, including experienced mountain guides, dug through more than four metres of snow that had buried the tents and everything beneath them. On Sunday, two mountain guides were pulled from the snow. Monday brought the bodies of two kitchen staff members. By Tuesday, three more had been recovered. Then on Thursday, rescuers found eight additional bodies at the site, bringing the confirmed death toll to fifteen. One worker remained missing, though Tul Singh Gurung, president of Nepal's National Mountain Guide Association, said the chances of finding that person alive were slim and that the rescue operation would likely conclude soon.

Gurung told Reuters that the bodies recovered on Thursday were expected to be transported by helicopter to Kathmandu. The recovery operation had stretched across nearly a week, with rescuers working methodically through the snow and debris to locate and remove each victim. The work was physically demanding and emotionally taxing—these were not tourists or wealthy climbers, but the local workers whose labor makes high-altitude mountaineering possible for others.

The Himlung disaster arrives in a context of compounded catastrophe for Nepal. The country is still grappling with the aftermath of a devastating glacial collapse on August 26 that triggered floods killing more than 1,400 people and leaving over 5,000 missing. Heavy rains that began Thursday have now triggered fresh floods and landslides across the country, killing at least 21 more people according to Nepal's national disaster agency. The nation's disaster response systems are stretched thin, managing multiple crises simultaneously across a landscape where mountains and weather pose constant, overlapping threats.

Nepal's recent mountaineering history is marked by tragedy. In 2014, an avalanche on Mount Everest killed 16 people. The following year, an earthquake struck the same mountain, killing 18 more. The Himlung avalanche now ranks among the worst of these incidents. The country is home to eight of the world's fourteen highest peaks, and mountaineering and trekking tourism form a crucial pillar of its economy. Himlung itself has become a popular starting point for climbers beginning their progression through the 7,000-metre peaks. That popularity, and the work required to support expeditions on these mountains, means that when disaster strikes at altitude, it strikes the workers first—the guides, the porters, the kitchen staff, the rope fixers who make the mountains accessible to others.