Sherpa Expedition to clear Mt. Qomolangma\’s Death Zone

KATHMANDU, April 19 (Xinhua) — A 31-member Sherpa expedition team is heading for Mountain Qomolangma with a mission to clear over 2,000 kg of garbage from the \”Death Zone\” located at above 8,000 meters elevation, local media reported on Monday.

According to The Kathmandu Post daily, the expedition aims to bring back the bodies of climbers that have been buried on Mt. Qomolangma for a long time.

\”Since the official opening of Everest (Qomolangma) to expeditions in 1952, more than 300 people have lost their lives on the mountain,\” Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, was quoted by the daily as saying.

Namgyal Sherpa, the leader of the clean-up team, said that the task would not be easy. He said that the expedition would be an extreme and challenging one.

The team plans to bring back five corpses and garbage left by mountaineers from the Death Zone.

The dead bodies slated for removal include that of Gianni Goltz, a Swiss mountaineer and a member of the Kari Kobler commercial expedition who died in Mt. Qomolangma in 2008, and that of Scott Tischer, an American mountaineer who died in the 1996 Qomolangma disaster on May 11.

The expedition, which is being conducted under the sponsorship of Nepali business organizations, has been termed the first of its kind in mountaineering history.

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