Three French climbers missing in Nepal after probable avalanche

MISCELLANEOUS FACT – A race against time has started in the Himalayas. Three young people mountaineers French engaged in an expedition to Nepal are missing and a rescue team has been dispatched to the site, the French Federation of Alpine and Mountain Clubs (FFCAM) ​​said in a statement on Sunday, October 31.

The three men are part of the National Alpinism Excellence Group (GEAN), the mountaineering elite within the Federation. They are part of a group of young athletes who left on September 30 in the Khumbu region (region of Everest), to climb several peaks between 5 and 6,000 meters above sea level located south of Ama Dablam (6,814 m), she says.

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According to France blue, Louis Pachoud and Gabriel Miloche two 27-year-old mountaineers are from Chambéry and Besançon. Their coach Thomas Arfi, a 34-year-old from Nice, accompanied them.

The three missing men, had left since Sunday, October 24 for a climb to a summit near Ama Dablam and the last telephone contact with them dates back to Tuesday, October 26, according to FFCAM.

A helicopter and a rescue team on site

A helicopter chartered by the federation carried out a reconnaissance on Saturday and spotted “traces of ascent as well as the debris of a large-scale avalanche in the face”. “Today, Sunday, October 31, a helicopter with a rescue team is dispatched to try to find any survivors,” adds FFCAM.

The head of GEAN Stéphane Benoist told the French regional daily Dauphiné Liberated to be “in shock, devastated, like the whole group”. According to him, the group of 8 climbers had split “into two groups, five on one side and three others (…), on another ascent. There was a delay in their ascent time, the FFCAM took the lead and had a helicopter fly over their rock face ”.

“They spotted traces that end. One can imagine that they were swept away by an avalanche. The helicopter spotted traces of material at the foot of the wall. Tomorrow, Nepalese rescuers will go there, the weather forecast is good to intervene. We know it’s dangerous, but we are devastated, ”he said.

“The Himalayas are not the Alps”

“I can tell you that the relief operations are launched but I cannot tell you where they are”, told AFP the president of the FFCAM, Nicolas Raynaud, deeming unlikely that we know more before Monday.

“The Himalayas are not the Alps. We do not send a helicopter that is in the area in half an hour. In addition we are on a summit which is virgin, which has never been climbed, in a valley bottom where even the locals do not know how to go, it is not so easy to mount a rescue operation ” , he added. “Whatever happens, it is an accident which will leave traces and which will be dramatic”.

These mountaineers, “are people who do not take decisions lightly (…) There was a very big job of preparation, scouting on site” with binoculars, he underlines. “This is very high level mountaineering so inevitably the part of the random is even more important”.

The objective was to climb the Mingbo Eiger (6.017m), a summit close to Ama Dablam. These are “major itineraries”, even if they are not “prestigious summits”, notes Nicolas Raynaud.

Tents and equipment spotted

According to the newspaper The Himalayan Times, tents and mountaineering equipment were spotted near a glacier under Mount Ama Dablam by a rescue team early Sunday.

An official from the Ministry of Tourism told the newspaper that these climbers did not require the necessary permission to embark on this climb.

“We do not yet have clear information on the number of missing persons,” the president of the Nepalese National Association of Mountain Guides, Ang Norbu Sherpa, told AFP. “We sent a team of 5 very experienced mountain guides. They are on their way and will start search operations tomorrow (Monday) ”, he added.

Mountaineers are back in Nepal after a complete closure last year due to the pandemic which devastated the economy of this country of 30 million inhabitants, very dependent on tourism. The country reopened to tourists in September, exempting those who are vaccinated from quarantine.

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