Two missing and one Chinese climber dead during Mount Dhaulagiri ascent

Zao Liyang, a 35 year old climber was part of a nine-member expedition to the peak but fell to his death by bad weather on Saturday, the Nepal Tourism and Civil Aviation Department said.

He was killed and two other companions got disappeared on the slopes of the highest seventh peak in the world, officials said.

A search of them is going on, including searches by helicopter. The chances of survival have been reduced due to the freezing cold weather and lack of food and shelter.

The three climbers reached the summit of the peak of 8167 meters, while returning they ran into bad weather and an “off white, a thick fog made movement difficult and dangerous.

One member had left at the beginning of the climb, the other five returned to Kathmandu Saturday, exhausted and traumatized.

Two of them were admitted to hospital with severe frostbite.
“Dhaulagiri is not a difficult mountain to climb but no one can predict anything with the ranges of the Himalayas,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, former director of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, a private organization responsible for promoting Tourism Mountain in Nepal.

Among the six people who had climbed 50 years ago, only Kurt Diemberger who is now 69, is alive.

The Austrian writer, film maker was in Kathmandu to participate in the celebrations.
This season, the ranges of the Himalayas has cost more than two lives.

Last month, Russian climber Sergei died trying Duganov Mount Lhotse, the tallest peak in the fourth 8511, and a team of climbers managed to bring his body down.

Tolo Calafat Spanish climber died of a cerebral edema last month when he tried to Mount Annapurna, a Himalayan peak delicate, with an incidence of 40 percent of the victims.