{"id":482069,"date":"2025-10-08T04:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T04:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/482069\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T04:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T04:50:10","slug":"mount-everest-rescue-all-hikers-now-safe-after-days-stranded-in-powerful-blizzard-tibet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/482069\/","title":{"rendered":"Mount Everest rescue: all hikers now safe after days stranded in powerful blizzard | Tibet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rescuers guided all of the remaining trekkers near the east face of Everest<\/a> in Tibet to safety, including hundreds of local guides and yak herders, authorities said, ending one of the largest search-and-rescue operations in the region.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of hikers were stranded<\/a> in deep snow over the weekend in the isolated Karma valley after an unusually powerful blizzard dumped heavy snowfall in the region.<\/p>\n

Snow fell throughout Saturday in the valley, which lies at an average altitude of 4,200m (13,800ft). On Sunday, rescuers had guided about 350 hikers to safety.<\/p>\n

According to an earlier Reuters report, citing a source, the remaining 200 or so hikers were expected to reach safety by Tuesday.<\/p>\n

A total of 580 trekkers along with more than 300 guides, yak herders and other support staff were evacuated, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

One Chinese trekker said their group had been \u201ctoo scared to sleep\u201d on Saturday as snow quickly piled up around their tents, forcing them to clear it every 90 minutes. They decided to descend on Sunday as the weather worsened.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>On the way, we met our guide\u2019s father, who had come looking for him. That\u2019s when we learned the snow was heavy in the valley, too; villagers, unable to contact their children on the mountain, were extremely worried.\u201d<\/p>\n

The snowstorm also thwarted the plans of climbers guided by US-based Madison Mountaineering<\/a> to summit Cho Oyu, an 8,188m (26,864ft) peak on China\u2019s border with Nepal.<\/p>\n

Karma valley was first explored by western travellers a century ago. In recent years, with the development of the Everest region in Tibet<\/a> as a major tourism draw, the area has attracted an increasing number of visitors. More than 540,000 tourists visited the Everest region last year, a new record.<\/p>\n

The Everest region remains temporarily closed to the public, Xinhua reported, including the Karma and Rongshar valleys, as well as Cho Oyu.<\/p>\n

The heavy snowfall over the weekend also affected hundreds of hikers in other parts of western China<\/a>, including Xinjiang, Qinghai and Gansu. At least one died, due to a combination of hypothermia and acute mountain sickness.<\/p>\n

October is a peak season for the area, with usually clear and mild weather, but Chen Geshuang, one of 18 members of a trekking group that made it back to Qudang, said that the weather this year was \u201cnot normal\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rescuers guided all of the remaining trekkers near the east face of Everest in Tibet to safety, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-482069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115336748924572119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}