Two people died and at least 10 went missing after an avalanche struck a climbing camp in Nepal, just weeks after deadly flash floods left nearly 1,400 dead in the Himalayan nation.
The avalanche hit the base camp of Himlung Himal, a 7,126m peak in the Nar Phu area of Manang district, close to the border with Tibet, China, on Sunday morning.
It buried a tent in which nine climbers and 13 support staff were sheltering.
Deputy police superintendent Shailendra Thapa said 12 people went missing after the avalanche and two were later found dead on the peak, leaving 10, all of them Nepalese nationals, unaccounted for.
The Nepal National Mountain Guides Association, however, said that 14 kitchen staff and two guides had been reported missing but the guides had since been found dead, leaving 14 people missing by its count.
“The search for the remaining kitchen staff members is ongoing," the association said on social media.
The missing staff worked for expedition organisers Himalayan Holidays Nepal and Imagine Nepal Treks, which lost contact with their people after the avalanche struck.
"One of the expedition members telephoned and informed that their friends had gone missing after the avalanche hit the base camp," an official at the association said.
Bibhuti Chand Thakur, of Himalaya Holidays Trekking, told the AFP news agency that eight members of his expedition team were missing.
The Nepalese guides and support staff had been sent ahead of foreign climbers to prepare the camp and fix ropes, according to local media reports. Poor weather hampered the rescue, with helicopters and rescue teams initially unable to reach the site.
A team of experienced mountaineers was flown in from the capital Kathmandu and local media said the rescue effort was expected to continue on Monday.
Persistent rain and snow in Nepal's mountainous areas in recent days have created treacherous conditions for the climbing tourism industry.
Climbers were forced to leave Mount Manaslu, the world's eighth highest peak, earlier this week because of the rising threat of avalanches.
The avalanche on Himlung Himal comes weeks after a glacial collapse in August sent floods and debris down the Trishuli River valley in the country, killing at least 1,400 people and leaving more than 6,000 still missing.
Extreme weather has also affected other parts of Asia in the past week.
More than 50 people have been killed in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, according to officials, and a flood emergency has been declared in Bangkok, Thailand. Earlier, Typhoon Dujuan, the latest in a series of Pacific storms made more intense by the weather phenomenon "super El Niño", struck Japan and triggered landslides that killed four people.
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