Two more Indians, an Austrian die on Mount Everest, toll rises to seven over the last week

Two Indians and an Austrian died on Mount Everest on Thursday, BBC reported on Friday. As many as seven people have so far died on the world’s tallest mountain over the last week.

The deaths were caused due to a situation akin to a “traffic jam” near the summit of the Mount Everest, the news network said. On Wednesday, an American and an Indian had died due to congestion near the summit.

The Indians who died on Thursday were identified as Kalpana Das, 52, and Nihal Bagwan, 27. They died while scaling back down the mountain.

“He [Bagwan] was stuck in the traffic for more than 12 hours and was exhausted,” Keshav Paudel of Peak Promotion, an expedition agency, told AFP. “Sherpa guides carried him down to Camp IV but he breathed his last there.”

An Austrian climber died on the northern Tibet side of the mountain on Thursday, his expedition organiser said.

Anjali Kulkarni, 55, who died on the mountain on Wednesday was stuck in the “traffic jam” above Camp IV, her son Shantanu Kulkarni told CNN. American mountaineer Donald Lynn Cash also died Wednesday after fainting from high altitude sickness while descending the mountain, Nepalese expedition company Pioneer Adventure Ltd told the news network.

Indian Army soldier Ravi Thakar and another mountaineer, Narayan Singh, had both died at Camp IV on May 16. An Irish professor, Séamus Lawless, has been presumed dead after he fell from the mountain the same day.

Climbers usually attempt to scale the Himalayan peaks along with their guides between the months of March and May. The director of Nepal’s department of tourism, Mira Acharya, said 381 international mountaineers were granted permits to climb the Mount Everest this year, of which 78 were Indian nationals, PTI reported.

Corrections and clarifications: This story has been edited to say the Nepal government issues permits for mountaineers to scale Mount Everest, not India.