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 Nearly 600 people have been rescued from the popular hiking trail
around Annapurna, the world's tenth highest peak, after it was hit
by unseasonable snow and avalanches brought by the tail end of a
cyclone that swept through neighboring India.
"Today is the last day of the search and rescue operation," said
Kesa Paned of the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal. "After
this we can only hope that those who are missing will establish
contact with us or their families.
"We don't think that any tourist is missing now. I am getting
reports that some local porters and tour guides who were on the trek
have not been traced so far," said Paned, whose team has rescued
more than 250 people.
The dead include Canadian, Indian, Israeli, Japanese, Nepalese,
Polish and Slovak trekkers. Survivors said many people perished
trying to descend in freezing whiteout conditions from the highest
pass of the 240-km (150-mile) trail around Annapurna, which offers
dramatic views of crags and hamlets.
Searchers retrieved another body on Monday, taking the tally of
deaths to 40.
"Army rescuers dug out the body of an Israeli tourist from snow
today," Baburam Bhandari, chief of Nepal's Mustang district, one of
the worst hit, told Reuters.
Nepalese army and private helicopters have brought back survivors
from parts of the trail that are more than 5,000 meters high (16,400
feet).
Soldiers fanned out through some of the most treacherous terrain,
where helicopters cannot land, including around the glacial lake of
Tilicho, about four days' trek from the main circuit, and the
distant villages of Naar and Phu near Tibet.
"Rigorous efforts are being made to reach seven people who still
remain missing in Naar and Phu," said Devendra Lamichhane, the chief
administrator of Nepal's Manang region.
"Small avalanches are still continuing in Manang, making search and
rescue operations difficult."
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The incident was Nepal's second major mountain disaster this year,
after 16 guides died in an avalanche in April on Mount Everest, the
world's highest peak.
Tourism Minister Dipak Amatya said he was determined to overhaul
adventure sports tourism in Nepal, and ensure it never again faced a
similar tragedy.
"There is no point blaming the hostile weather for the disaster," he
told Reuters. "I blame our entire mechanism because it is our
responsibility to protect tourists and Nepali citizens."
Amatya's ministry is working on a plan to build more than 200
shelters on all the trekking routes in Nepal, to ensure every
tourist finds a shelter within a distance of 3 km (2 miles).
Nepal is home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountains. Income
from tourism, including permit fees for trekkers, who made up more
than 12 percent of its 800,000 tourists in 2013, accounts for four
percent of its economy.
(Additional reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel
and Clarence Fernandez)
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