Porni Banerjee | ০৭ জুন ২০২৪ ১৭ : ০৩Porni Banerjee

The Nepalese army has said that it removed four corpses, one skeleton and eleven tonnes of garbage from Mount Everest and two other Himalayan peaks in the past few months, a report suggested.

The Nepalese troops added that it took them 55 days to clear the rubbish and dead bodies from Everest, Nuptse and Lhotse Mountain peaks. It is estimated that more than fifty tonnes of waste and above 200 bodies are still lying in Everest.

As per the report, the army had cleared up 119 tonnes of rubbish, 14 human corpses and some skeletons, in a five clean-up mission since 2019. This initiative was taken by the army following growing concerns about overcrowding and the dangerous conditions that climbers face during summit.

This year, in order to control environmental degradation and improve rescues, authorities instructed climbers to wear tracking devices and bring back their own feces.

In addition, the government now plans to set up a team of mountain rangers to monitor rubbish and allocate more funds for its collection, said Nepal’s Department of Tourism director of mountaineering Rakesh Gurung.

A total of 600 mountaineers were permitted for summit, of which eight climbers died or went missing this year, compared to 19 last year. Among those missing, include Brit Daniel Paterson and his Nepalese guide Pastenji Sherpa who got stranded after being hot by falling ice on May 21.

Following the mishap, Paterson’s family started raising funds to hire a search team to find them. However, it was later reported that “is not possible at this time” because of the odd location and danger in the operation.