An avalanche on Mount Shishapangma (southwest China), one of the highest in the world, left at least two dead, two American and Nepalese climbers and two missing, organizers told AFP on Sunday.
This Himalayan mountain rises to 8,027 meters above sea level and is located in Tibet.
The avalanche occurred on Saturday “at an altitude between 7,600 and 8,000 meters,” the official Xinhua news agency said, citing the Tibet Sports Bureau.
“The avalanche killed an American mountaineer and a Nepalese mountaineer, an American mountaineer and a Nepalese mountaineer are missing, and a Nepalese mountaineer was seriously injured,” the agency said, although it did not provide any information about the identity or gender of the victims.
According to the expedition organizers, American mountaineer Anna Gutu has died and her compatriot Gina Marie is missing.
According to the Nepalese newspaper The Himalayan Times, they were in a race to become the first American woman to climb all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters above sea level.
“We received information that Anna and her guide were hit by the avalanche yesterday and their bodies were found,” Mingma David Sherpa, director of the Nepalese agency Elite Exped, which organized the event, told AFP. American mountaineering expedition.
“Other mountaineers are also missing,” he said.
Gina Marie’s fate is uncertain.
“The American mountaineer (Gina Marie Rzucidlo) and our guide (Tenjin) are missing. Research is ongoing,” Tashi Sherpa, director of the Nepalese company Seven Summit Treks, which organizes climbs of high peaks, told AFP.
In July, the company’s named Nepalese mountain guide Tenjin “Lama” Sherpa, along with Norwegian Kristin Harila, became the fastest mountaineers to climb the world’s 14 peaks above 8,000 meters.