12 Dead After Avalanche Hit Mount Everest

World Today

At least 12 people are dead and four others are missing, after an avalanche hit Mount Everest early Friday. It’s the highest recorded death toll there in a single day.

With peak season just days away, Sherpas and guides are busy preparing for the trek up the highest peak in the world. “The Sherpa guides were carrying up equipment and other necessities for climbers when the disaster happened,” a spokesman for Nepal’s Tourism Ministry, Mohan Krishna Sapkota, told a news agency. Hundreds have died attempting to reach the peak, many of them Sherpas. The Sherpa people are one of the main ethnic groups in Nepal’s alpine region, and many make their livings as climbing guides on Everest and other Himalayan peaks. As CCTV’S Malini Wilkes reports the journey to the summit is said to be breathtakingly beautiful, but notoriously dangerous.

12 Dead After Avalanche Hit Mount Everest

At least 12 people are dead and four others are missing, after an avalanche hit Mount Everest early Friday. It's the highest recorded death toll there in a single day.As CCTV'S Malini Wilkes reports the journey to the summit is said to be breathtakingly beautiful, but notoriously dangerous.