30 Climbers Evacuated From Mount Everest After Covid Outbreak, Threatening Nepal's Tourism Again

More than 400 people in Nepal have died over the last two weeks after contracting Covid.

Tents of mountaineers are pictured Monday at the Everest Base Camp in Nepal.(Prakash Mathema/AFP)

New Delhi: Over 30 mountaineers were evacuated from the foot of Mount Everest after fears rose about another Covid outbreak which could shutdown Nepal's tourism industry all over again. 

The tourism industry is one of the worst effected during the pandemic while there are some places in the world that are opening up slowly it will take a while before it starts functioning like it did pre-pandemic. 

Nepal's tourism industry suffered a devastating blow last year when the pandemic prompted a complete shutdown of its summits, costing millions in lost revenue. The Nepal government eased the rules and issued 400 new permits to foreign climbers. An Everest permit alone costs $11,000 and climbers pay upward of $40,000 for an expedition so it could have help the recover the loss. 

But second wave of Covid-19 infections, with active cases in the country rising six-fold in the last two weeks put the industry back at risk. 

Accoridng to an AFP report, a Norwegian climber Erlend Ness spent two nights sleeping in his tent at base camp last month, unsure of what was making him ill.

"I was evacuated to Kathmandu and was tested. My result was positive for Covid," he told AFP, becoming the first climber with an Everest permit to confirm his infection.

"I think I'm not the only one... Every team at the base camp knows the risk of Covid is there and they have to be careful, they should be careful," he said.

Another climber Gina Marie Han-Lee decided to abandon her expedition last week over fears the disease was spreading around base camp.

"I have taken a helicopter out of EBC (Everest base camp) back to Kathmandu after 1 day. The Covid situation at EBC is a total shitstorm. I had no clue what I was flying into," the US citizen wrote on her Facebook page on April 29. 

"It was a heartbreaking decision but I'm putting my health first. Covid at a high altitude does not sound like something I want to play with," she added.

Officials at a health clinic catering to the climbers say more than 30 people have been flown off the camp in recent weeks. At least two have tested positive after returning to the capital Kathmandu. But the government has yet to confirm a single Covid case on Everest.

"Some evacuated may have tested positive in Kathmandu. They did not test at the base camp, so we cannot be sure where they got infected," said Nepal's tourism department chief Rudra Singh Tamang.

More than 400 people in Nepal have died over the last two weeks after contracting Covid. The country's health system has been overwhelmed by the sudden spike, with hospitals filling fast and relatives of patients scrambling for medicine and intensive care beds.