KATHMANDU, April 18- An avalanche swept the slopes of Mount Everest early Friday morning, killing at least 13 Nepalese guides and leaving three others missing, officials said, in what is now said to be the single deadliest disaster to hit the world’s highest peak.
The Sherpa guides had gone early in the morning to fix ropes for climbers when the avalanche hit just below “Camp 2″ at about 6:30 a.m., Nepal Tourism Ministry official Krishna Lamsal said. Rescue workers pulled out 13 bodies from under mounds of snow and ice and were still searching for the missing.
Two Sherpas were taken by helicopter to hospitals in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.
The area is known as one of the most dangerous, with the glacier moving so rapidly that it opens up crevasses with little or no warning. Towers of ice can collapse suddenly in chunks. It’s nicknamed the “popcorn field” because, from a distance, it resembles a giant bowl of popcorn filled with jagged blocks of ice that have broken off the mountain.
It is reported hundreds of climbers and guides had gathered at the base camp, preparing for their final attempt to scale the 29,035-foot peak next month when weather conditions are more favorable. They have been setting up camps at higher altitudes with guides fixing ropes on the slopes before the final climb in May.
Nepal had announced steps earlier this year to better manage the flow of climbers, minimize congestion and speed up rescue operations. The preparations included the dispatch of officials and security personnel to the base camp at 17,380 feet, where they would stay throughout the spring climbing season that ends in May.
More than 4,000 climbers have scaled the summit since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay did it in 1953.
