A Malaysian climber narrowly survived after a Nepali sherpa guide hauled him down from below the summit of Mount Everest in a very rare high-altitude

Nepali sherpa saves climber in rare Everest ‘death zone’ rescue

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2023-06-04 08:30:05

A Malaysian climber narrowly survived after a Nepali sherpa guide hauled him down from below the summit of Mount Everest in a very rare high-altitude rescue, a government official has said.

Gelje Sherpa, 30, was guiding a Chinese client to the 8,849-metre (29,032ft) Everest summit on 18 May when he saw the Malaysian climber clinging to a rope and shivering from extreme cold in the area known as the death zone, where temperatures can dip to -30C or lower.

Gelje hauled the climber 600 metres down from the Balcony to the South Col, over a period of about six hours, where Nima Tashi Sherpa, another guide, joined the rescue.

Gelje said: “We wrapped the climber in a sleeping mat, dragged him on the snow or carried him in turns on our backs to camp three.”

“It is almost impossible to rescue climbers at that altitude,” said Bigyan Koirala, an official from the department of tourism. “It is a very rare operation.”