18 killed by avalanche at Kang Guru (Annapurna)

October 2005

The news was announced on Nepalese television yesterday: 7 French mountaineers/trekkers and 11 Nepalese Sherpa have been killed by an avalanche at Kang Guru Base Camp. Kang Guru lies in the Manang region, close to Annapurna, and is 6981m high. According to the partial reports by the Reuter news agency the expedition was led by the 60 year old Frenchman Daniel Stolzenberg. According to APCOM, official French reports talk about missing mountaineers and the exact number of these is not clear.

APCOM reports further: "The French mountaineers are all from Chamonix and Albertville: Bruno Chardin, Bernard Constantin, Gregory Flematti, FranÃ§ois Judei, Jean-Paul Minette, Marie-Odile Stolzenberg and Daniel Stolzenberg, expedition leader, 60 anni, expert mountaineer and Ensa professor, the authoritative Chamonix mountaineering school. Yesterday France's foreign minister expressed his "extreme worries" about the expedition but with no other information to go on the search continues.

An avalanche seems to have hit base camp last Wednesday and the only survivors are the 4 Nepalese Sherpas who were outside the tents at the time. Due to bad weather rescue operations began only 4 days after the disaster, and only yesterday did a helicopter manage to reach the avalanche site. The entire Manang area has been subject to heavy snowfall in recent days.

Hopes of finding the missing climbers are by now waning fast. If confirmed, this contemporary death toll must be regarded as one of the greatest Himalayan tragedies. As many will remember, Christian Kuntner lost his life on Annapurna earlier this year due to falling seracs during his attempt to scale his 14th 8000m peak.