This is the second fatality of this year’s spring season on Mount Everest. According to Nepalese authorities, Nepalese climber Bijaya Ghimire Bishwakarma died Sunday morning in the Khumbu Icefall.
The 35-year-old, who worked for the expedition operator Tag Nepal, reportedly fell ill at Camp 1 at 6,100 meters. He then died during the descent through the Khumbu Icefall. The cause of death is still unclear. The Nepalese media are reporting a cardiac arrest, apparently as a result of high altitude sickness.
First Dalit on the world’s highest mountain
According to the Himalayan Database, Bijaya Ghimire had reached the 8,849-meter-high summit of Mount Everest four times: in 2017, 2019, 2023, and 2025. He was from the village of Garma in Solukhumbu and was the first member of the Bishwakarma ethnic group to stand on the highest point on earth.
The Bishwakarma belong to the Hindu Dalit caste, which was formerly often referred to as “the untouchables.” In the 2021 census, they accounted for about 13 percent of Nepal’s population.
Despite a legal ban on discrimination, Dalits in Nepal continue to face widespread discrimination and are victims of violence, particularly girls and women, according to human rights organizations such as Amnesty International.
Bijaya Ghimire had inspired many young people in Nepal with his YouTube videos about his Everest climbs.
American woman dies in avalanche
Another fatality has been reported on the eight-thousander Makalu. According to the Nepalese website thetourismtimes.com, an American woman died in an avalanche at an altitude of approximately 7,000 meters. Her Nepalese guide was injured.
They were part of a four-person group that had reached the summit at 8,485 meters on Saturday and was on the descent.
Update 12 May: According to the Himalayan Times, another Nepalese climber lost his life today on Mount Everest. The 21-year-old Phura Gyaljen Sherpa, who worked for the tour operator Kaitu Expeditions, reportedly fell into a crevasse on the Lhotse flank at an altitude of about 7,000 meters.
Phura was from the village of Thame in the Khumbu region and was the grandson of Everest legend Ang Rita Sherpa. Known as the “Snow Leopard,” he had climbed Everest nine times without supplemental oxygen. Ang Rita died in 2020 at the age of 72.
Meanwhile, a rope-fixing team from the expedition operators Imagine Nepal, Elite Exped, and Seven Summit Treks has begun securing the final stretch from the South Col to the summit. Their arrival at the highest point at 8,849 meters is expected this Wednesday.