An avalanche in the Himalayas has swept away a mountaineering team attempting to reach the world’s 14th-highest peak, killing two Europeans and injuring another climber, a Nepalese official said yesterday.
A team of elite mountaineers, including Switzerland’s Ueli Steck, Italian Andrea Zambaldi and Germans Benedikt Boehm, Martin Maier and Sebastian Haag, were 100m shy of reaching the 8,027m peak of Shisha Pangma in China when the avalanche hit.
“Two climbers, one German, the other Italian, were swept away in an avalanche on Shisha Pangma,” Nepal Mountaineering Association president Ang Tshering Sherpa said.
The Europeans’ sponsor, Dynafit, confirmed the deaths in a statement, saying, “teammates Sebastian Haag and Andrea Zambaldi both perished in the accident.”
The force of the avalanche, which struck on Wednesday morning, threw Haag, Zambaldi and Maier across steep glaciers, dragging them down for around 600m, before landing them in an inaccessible section of the mountain.
“[Their teammates attempted a rescue], but turned around due to the fact that there was no access to the avalanche zone,” according to Dynafit. “Sebastian and Andrea disappeared with the avalanche and their bodies could not be found.”
Maier, who miraculously survived the accident, made his way to Camp 3, located at an altitude of about 7,300m, and received medical attention.
A former veterinary surgeon, Haag, 35, had accomplished several speed climbs and high-altitude ski attempts during his mountaineering career. Zambaldi, 32, worked as a marketing manager for Dynafit. The “Dynafit Double 8” project involved plans to speed climb and ski down Shisha Pangma and the 8,201m Cho Oyu mountain, located on the border between Nepal and China, via foot, ski, and bicycle in less than a week.
At least two dozen climbers have died while attempting to summit Shisha Pangma, including US mountaineering legend Alex Lowe, who was killed in a massive snow and ice avalanche in October 1999.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese