“Nature is unpredictable and is becoming increasingly so,” mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner told the South Tyrolean internet portal altoadige.it: “It has changed radically and has also become more dangerous due to climate change, which has led to a rise in temperatures, making the mountains and glaciers much more fragile and unstable.”
In recent days, there have been avalanches in both the Alps and the Himalayas, resulting in numerous fatalities.
Five dead on the Vertainspitze
Last Saturday (1 November), five German mountaineers were caught in an avalanche while climbing the 3,545-meter-high Vertainspitze in the Ortler Alps in South Tyrol and could only be recovered dead. According to mountain rescue services, there had been no particularly high avalanche risk: warning level two out of five.
Seven people die on Yalung Ri
On Monday, another tragedy occurred in the Himalayas in eastern Nepal. Seven people died in an avalanche on the 5,630-meter-high Yalung Ri in the Rolwaling Valley.
The victims were three Italians, two Nepalese, one Frenchman, and one German. At the time of the accident, some of them were climbing the mountain, while others were buried at the campsite at an altitude of 4,800 meters. Five people were able to escape the snow masses.
Yalung Ri, located about 40 kilometers west of Mount Everest as the crow flies, is considered an easy-to-climb “trekking mountain.”
Two climbers found dead on Panbari Himal
Last week, two Italian climbers died after heavy snowfall on the rarely climbed 6,887-meter-high Panbari Himal, near the eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal. Their teammate, who had stayed at base camp due to a foot injury, raised the alarm after losing contact with the two. A rescue team found them dead in their tent at around 5,250 meters.
P.S. Please don’t be surprised that I am only now reporting on the accidents. Due to a bereavement, I was otherwise occupied.
