Nepal: five alpinists' bodies found on Yalung Ri nine months after avalanche
Rescuers in Nepal have found five bodies on Mount Yalung Ri, nine months after an avalanche swept away a group of alpinists near the Tibet border in November 2025. Recovery is stalled by bad weather.
Discovery on Yalung Ri
Rescue teams and local residents discovered five bodies on Thursday on the slopes of Mount Yalung Ri, a 5,630-metre peak near the Nepal-Tibet border. The bodies are those of three foreigners and two Nepalis who went missing after an avalanche in November 2025. Biswash Karki, chief of Gaurishankar municipality, announced the find to AFP on Saturday 8 August.
Five bodies, those of three foreigners and two Nepalis, reported missing since last November, have been discovered.
Confusion over identities
The precise identities of the victims remain unclear, with sources offering differing accounts. AFP-based reporting identifies the missing as two Nepalis, an Italo-Canadian, a German, and an Italian. Reuters, cited by 7sur7, gives the same breakdown but adds that an Italian and a Frenchman had perished at the base camp of Yalung Ri. The Kathmandu Post, also cited by 7sur7, had previously reported that two Nepalis died and five others, described as two Italians, a Canadian, a Frenchman, and a German, went missing. The AFP-based articles do not mention a French victim among the five bodies found.
- Avalanche sweeps alpinists off the slopes of Yalung Ri (5,630 m) near the Tibet border; five people go missing.
- Local residents and rescue teams discover five bodies at the site where the alpinists vanished.
- A helicopter is dispatched to the site, but poor weather prevents immediate recovery.
- Biswash Karki announces the discovery to AFP; authorities plan helicopter recovery once weather improves.
Recovery hampered by weather
Manoj Kumar Lama, a senior local police official in Dolakha, said a helicopter was dispatched to the site on Friday. Poor weather has so far prevented the team from retrieving the bodies.
Our team will evacuate the bodies by helicopter as soon as the weather improves.
Karki explained that since the alpinists' disappearance, the army, police, and local rescue teams had been mobilised to find them, but the bodies were buried under thick layers of snow. Employees of the trekking agency that supported the climbers are also trying to reach the area, but bad weather is complicating their efforts. One trekking agency employee told Reuters that the bodies could reappear as the snow melts.
Mountaineering toll in Nepal
Nepal is home to eight of the world's ten highest peaks, including Everest, and draws hundreds of climbers and trekkers each year. According to the Himalayan Database, which catalogues expeditions, at least 1,093 people have died on these summits since 1950. Avalanches have caused nearly a third of those deaths. The Yalung Ri avalanche in November 2025 adds to that toll, though the full count of victims from that incident remains uncertain amid the conflicting reports about who was caught in the slide and where they perished.
