Hundreds of local villagers and rescue teams have been deployed to clear out snow blocking access to the area, which sits at an altitude of more than 4,900 metres (16,000 feet).

According to local media, about 350 people have been rescued and guided to safety to the small township of Qudang town, the Reuters news agency said.

Heavy snowfall began on Friday evening and has intensified on the eastern slopes of Mount Everest in Tibet, which is an area popular with climbers and hikers.

“It was so wet and cold – hypothermia was a real risk,” Chen Geshuang, who was part of a trekking group who made it to Qudang, told Reuters.

“The weather this year is not normal. The guide said he had never encountered such weather in October. And it happened all too suddenly.”

Tibet’s Blue Sky Rescue team had received a call for help saying that tents had collapsed due to heavy snow, and that some hikers were already suffering from hypothermia, Chinese state media reported.

Tingri County Tourism Company suspended ticket sales and entry to the Everest Scenic Area from Saturday, according to Reuters news agency.

The region is facing extreme weather at the moment, as neighbouring Nepal has been battered by heavy rains, which triggered landslides and flash floods that have washed away bridges and killed at least 47 people in the last two days.

In China, Typhoon Matmo has made landfall, forcing about 150,000 people to evacuate from their homes.

Mount Everest is the world’s highest peak at over 8,849m. Although many people attempt to climb the summit every year, it is considered an incredibly dangerous hike.

In recent years, it has been plagued with concerns of overcrowding, environmental concerns and a series of fatal climbing attempts.

Source: BBC

A Kenyan mountaineer who went missing near the summit of Mount Everest has been found dead.

Forty-year-old Joshua Cheruiyot Kirui and his Nepali guide Nawang Sherpa, 44, disappeared on Wednesday during Mr Kirui’s bid to become the first African to climb Mt Everest without extra oxygen.

The guide is yet to be found by the search team that had been deployed to locate the pair, a local tourism official told AFP news agency.

Climbing Everest, the world’s highest peak, is considered extremely difficult and risky, even for experienced climbers.

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Her 10-time achievement, reported by her brother and confirmed by a Nepalese official, makes her the first woman to do so.

The Nepalese single mother was born in a cave, had no formal education and worked as a janitor.

She last made the 8,848.86m (29,031.69ft) ascent in 2018.

“I felt like I’d reached my dream when I reached Everest’s summit for the first time,” she told the BBC ahead of Thursday’s climb.

“I thought to myself, ‘No more just being a housewife!’

“I felt like I’d changed Sherpa culture, the status of Sherpa women and Nepali women. I enjoyed being outside of my home and I wanted to share that feeling with all women.”

Lhakpa was chosen by the BBC as one its 100 most inspirational and influential women for 2016.

News of her 10th summit was broken by her brother Mingma Gelu Sherpa, who said she had reached the top at 06:15 (00:30 GMT). Nepali tourism official Bhishma Kumar Bhattarai confirmed the report for Reuters news agency.

Speaking from base camp earlier, her youngest daughter Shiny, 15, told the BBC she was excited and keenly watching her mother’s progress.

“I look up to my mum,” she said. “She has achieved so much even though she had nothing.”

However, Lhakpa’s hard work and achievements have yet to translate into wealth and recognition.

She began life in a village more than 4,000m (13,000ft) above sea level in the Makalu region of eastern Nepal. She is a member of the Sherpa ethnic group, descended from nomadic Tibetans, who are used to living in hostile high altitudes.

“I was born in a cave,” she said, breaking into laughter. “I don’t even know my date of birth. My passport says I am 48.”

“I remember having to walk for hours, sometimes carrying my brothers to school, only to be turned away when I got there. At the time, girls were not allowed to go to school.”

Agriculture was the mainstay for her village, which had no electricity. What it did have was a certain magical neighbour.

“I grew up right next to Everest,” she recalled. “I could see it from my home. Everest continues to inspire and excite me.”

Since the first conquest of the mountain in 1953, more and more people have tried to scale the peak every year. Those who do so inevitably hire Sherpa guides and porters. But some Sherpas, like Lhakpa, set out to become mountaineers in their own right.

It was not an easy transition. Lhakpa’s parents didn’t back her.

“My mum said I would never get married,” she told the BBC. “She warned me that I would become too masculine and undesirable. The villagers told me that it’s a man’s job and I would die if I tried it.”

She brushed aside those concerns and made it to Everest’s highest ridge in 2000. In 2003, she became the first woman to scale Everest three times – and more records followed.

During her 2003 climb, she was joined by her brother and sister, becoming the first three siblings simultaneously on an 8,000-metre-high mountain. The Guinness Book of World Records recognised the feat.

She then married US-based Romanian-born climber George Dijmarescu, and scaled the peak with him five times.

After getting married she moved to the US, but the relationship ended in acrimonious divorce in 2015.

Lhakpa now lives in the US state of Connecticut with their two daughters. She also has a son from a previous relationship.

During her initial expeditions she used to plant the Nepali flag at the summit. This time, she was carrying the US flag.

But her achievements failed to attract media attention and sponsors. For many years she was living unrecognised, and working for minimum wage.

“My jobs included taking care of the elderly, house cleaning and dish washing,” she said.

“I didn’t make much money. I couldn’t afford to buy clothes or pay for haircuts. I just had to focus on taking care of my children and then hope I had enough to return to Everest.”

But she maintained a passion for climbing. She went up twice as a guide, and on some occasions friends and family helped support her trips.

Mountaineering was “not very rewarding compared with the risks involved”, she said, but she believes it helped her escape what otherwise would have been a mundane life in the village.

Financially, things began to change after she learned to speak English well. She gave interviews, and spoke at events.

She got a sponsor for her ninth scale of the summit. But this time, her 10th, she raised the money through crowdfunding.

Lhakpa always starts her trek with a customary prayer. Safety is her biggest priority.

More than 300 people have died while trying to scale Mount Everest, so Lhakpa and her team have to pass bodies preserved by ice.

“The mountain decides the weather,” she said. “During bad weather I would just wait. We can’t wrestle a mountain.”

“Past 8,000m, I feel like a zombie,” she said. “You can’t eat and everything is frozen. You have to climb at night so that you can descend from the summit in the daylight. It’s scary.”

Climbers get very little time at the top. For Lhakpa, it is only five to 10 minutes – just enough time to take pictures and reflect on all the people who support her climbs.

She has no plans to retire after this season. She wants to scale K2, the world’s second-highest peak. She is also thinking of climbing Everest in the future with her son and daughters, because “mountain climbing is my passion and this is what I want to do.”

“I’ve had a challenging life,” she added. “Mountains made me happy and relaxed. I will never give up. I want young women not to give up.”

This year, only 11 in the country took the college entrance exams. Many blind people, instead, find work as massage therapists or piano tuners. But one man in China recently became the first blind person in Asia to climb Mount Everest.

Zhang Hong grew up in the rural countryside, caring for his dad and uncle who were blinded by glaucoma. At the age of 21, he lost his sight, too. Then, a few years ago, he heard about Erik Weihanmayer, the first blind person to summit Everest 20 years prior, and Zhang was inspired to attempt it himself.

He spent years training his body to prepare for the climb. Every day, he’d strap on a heavy bag and climb 100 flights of stairs at the hospital where he and his wife work as massage therapists.

But it couldn’t fully prepare him for the challenge of climbing Everest — during a pandemic — and at the age of 46. Once they started the ascent, Zhang said the biggest challenge was the weather.

“My guide kept telling me soon, soon, but all I felt was fear.” Zhang Hong, reached Mount Everest summit while blind

“It was very dangerous,” he said. “The weather was very bad. My guide kept telling me soon, soon, but all I felt was fear. Part of me wanted to give up and part of me wanted to keep going.”

His guide, Qiangzi, talked him through the entire final ascent, which took them more than 13 hours in low-oxygen conditions.

“I didn’t know where my next step will be, and I didn’t know the ice condition,” Zhang said. “I didn’t know where to put my feet, how to stay balanced. I had to depend on my guide’s directions every step of the way. It was very hard.”

But, he said, climbing blind has one advantage — you can’t see the danger around you.

“My guide kept telling me it would be just another half-hour, another half-hour, but it seemed to be so long,” he said. “I thought he was lying to me. Then he told me it was just the last bit of rope. Even when he told me there’s the summit up ahead, I didn’t really believe him.

“Then my guide told me, you made it to the summit,” Zhang said. “I only believed him after he said it a few times.”

Most climbers describe reaching the summit by what they can see — the curve of the Earth, the mountain peaks, the wispy clouds below them.

Zhang said for him, that moment was totally different. A video captured him standing among the Tibetan prayer flags at the peak

There was none of the excitement I expected to feel. … It was so stressful.”Zhang Hong, reached Mount Everest summit while blind

“The wind was beating my head,” he said. “It was like a monster. I was absolutely terrified. There was none of the excitement I expected to feel. All I could feel was the wide-open space and the sound of the wind. It was so stressful.”

Over a walkie-talkie, he and his team shared congratulations with a documentary film crew that had been following him.

“I told my guide, let’s take a photo and quickly go down,” he said. “I was only at the top for about five minutes.”

But, he said, reaching the top of Mount Everest was never the goal.

“Reaching the peak, you’re only halfway there,” he said. “It’s not the way up to the top where most mountain climbers get into trouble, it’s on the way back down, so I knew I hadn’t succeeded yet.”

He said that sense of accomplishment only came days later when he made it off the mountain.

Climbing Mount Everest wasn’t just about testing his physical strength. It was also about facing up to his own fears, Zhang said.

It was an impossible dream, said Fan Lixin, who led the documentary team on the climb.

“We all need the same kind of courage to face the Mount Everest in every one of our lives.”Fan Lixin, head of documentary film team

“I thought if I would be able to follow the process, the story would reflect something larger than life,” Fan said. “And it’s a story that would affect all of us. We all need the same kind of courage to face Mount Everest in every one of our lives.”

Even after facing his own Everest, Zhang said he’s only just begun. He hopes to complete an Explorers Grand Slam, reaching the seven tallest peaks in the world, along with the North and South Poles.

Some highlights of the history of Everest trekking

1922 – May 22, Lt-Col. Edward Lisle Strutt, General Charles Granville Bruce and Mallory began their Everest adventure and became the first to climb above 8,000 meters from the sea level.

1953 – May 29: Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay froom New Zealand and Nepal repectively were confirmed to be the first to reach the summit.

1975 – May 16, Junko Tabei from Japan made the first woman to make it to the top of Mount Everest.

2010 – May 22 recorded the youngest ever to climb Mount Everest who is Jordan Romero, 13 years, 10 months, 10 days old, from the United States.

2013 – May 23 recorded the oldest to climb Mount Everest who is Yuichiro Miura, 80 years, 224 days old from Japan.

2015 – April 25 became the deadliest day in the mountain climbing history recording 22 deaths.

The pandemic crumbled last year’s season but Nepal has eased quarantine rules in an effort to attract more climbers. 

“My diagnosis is COVID-19,” Erlend Ness told the AFP news agency in a Facebook message. “I am doing ok now … The hospital is taking care (of me).”

The Norweigan was reportedly evacuated from the slopes by helicopter and taken to a hospital in the Nepali capital Kathmandu after spending time at Everest base camp.

“I really hope that none of the others get infected with corona high up in the mountains. It is impossible to evacuate people with a helicopter when they are above 8,000 metres [26,246 feet],” Ness told NRK.

“The plan was to get fast high up in the mountains to make sure that we wouldn’t get infected … I’ve been unlucky and I could have done more by myself when it comes to sanitary precautions,” Ness added.

One hospital in Kathmandu confirmed it had taken in patients from Everest who had contracted coronavirus but could not give a number.

“I can’t share the details but some evacuated from Everest have tested positive,” Prativa Pandey, the medical director at Kathmandu’s CIWEC Hospital, told AFP.

But Mira Acharya, a spokesperson for Nepal’s tourism department, said it had so far not received any reports of COVID-19 among climbers.

“A person was evacuated on April 15 but we were informed that he is suffering from pneumonia and is being treated in isolation. That is all the information we have received,” she said.