It was the deadliest disaster ever on Mount Everest. The bodies of 13 Sherpa guides had been taken from the mountain. Three more are missing, though few held out hope they were still alive. If the avalanche had struck a few days later when climbing teams begin working their way up Everest, then there could have been many foreign fatalities too. The Sherpas are the ones who go first up the mountain. They break the deep snow, lay the fixed ropes and carry the heaviest loads. They face avalanches, altitude sickness, lack of oxygen and brutal cold.
The Sherpas, the once-obscure mountain people whose name has become synonymous with Everest, and whose entire culture has been changed by decades of working as guides and porters for wealthy foreigners, it was a brutal reminder of the risks they face.
"The mountains are a death trap," said Norbu Tshering, a 50-year-old Sherpa and mountain guide, "But we have no other work, and most of our people take up this profession, which has now become a tradition for all of us," he said. The work is dangerous — a year rarely passes without at least one death on Everest.
The economy of Mount Everest brings tens of millions of dollars to Nepal every year. Climbers can pay $100,000 for a chance to reach the summit.
“ It is a job which helps feed our families, sends our children to school," Dawa Dorje, 28, a mountain guide “We make more money than most of the people in the country. If the foreigners did not come, then we would be out of a job. They need us and we need them”
While the average annual income in Nepal is just $700, a high-altitude Sherpa guide can make $5,000 during the three-month climbing season.
"The risks for Sherpas on the mountain are twice that of the Western climbers," said Nima Tenzing, a 30-year-old guide "Death and injury on the mountain is part of our lives now.”
From here
The Sherpas, the once-obscure mountain people whose name has become synonymous with Everest, and whose entire culture has been changed by decades of working as guides and porters for wealthy foreigners, it was a brutal reminder of the risks they face.
"The mountains are a death trap," said Norbu Tshering, a 50-year-old Sherpa and mountain guide, "But we have no other work, and most of our people take up this profession, which has now become a tradition for all of us," he said. The work is dangerous — a year rarely passes without at least one death on Everest.
The economy of Mount Everest brings tens of millions of dollars to Nepal every year. Climbers can pay $100,000 for a chance to reach the summit.
“ It is a job which helps feed our families, sends our children to school," Dawa Dorje, 28, a mountain guide “We make more money than most of the people in the country. If the foreigners did not come, then we would be out of a job. They need us and we need them”
While the average annual income in Nepal is just $700, a high-altitude Sherpa guide can make $5,000 during the three-month climbing season.
"The risks for Sherpas on the mountain are twice that of the Western climbers," said Nima Tenzing, a 30-year-old guide "Death and injury on the mountain is part of our lives now.”
From here
UPDATE:
ReplyDeleteThe disaster has brought to the surface long-simmering tensions over how the government shares out millions of dollars in revenue from the annual pursuit of the Everest summit, with sherpas denouncing its initial $400 (£240) compensation offer for the families of their dead compatriots. All those who died were so-called "icefall doctors", doing one of the riskiest jobs of all, which involves finding a route through the twisting, broken mass of the Khumbu icefall, and then securing rope lines and ladders over the crevasses for foreign mountaineers to follow.
But the expedition leader said the disaster was a "wake-up call" for the whole climbing business and that "things would have to change".
All climbing on Mount Everest has come to a halt amid chaotic scenes at base camp, according to climbers there, four days after the worst-ever accident on the mountain. Some local guides are calling for a boycott but most foreign mountaineers remain on the mountain and are still hoping to resume climbing in the next week or so.
A "puja" ceremony on Tuesday for the 16 sherpa climbing guides killed by last Friday's avalanche descended into a surge of furious chanting and calls for all climbing to be suspended.
"They are very angry and very militant," the leader of one climbing team told the BBC.
Sherpas can earn up to $8,000 (£4,800) in the three-month Everest climbing season, more than 10 times as much as the average wage in Nepal, which remains one of Asia's poorest nations. Even the lowest paid porters who haul supplies up to Everest base camp do better. But that doesn't look so good when the Nepali government is earning millions of dollars each year in fees for climbing permits and with some commercial guiding companies charging clients up to $60,000 (£36,000) per person, with more than 300 paying mountaineers this year.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27112443