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Nepal to Establish Weather Warning System After Hiking Disaster Recriminations Follow Deaths of Hikers in Nepal
(about 2 hours later)
KATMANDU, Nepal — The prime minister of Nepal announced on Thursday night that the government would put in place a weather warning system after more than two dozen people, mostly trekkers, were killed in a snowstorm and avalanche along the Annapurna Circuit in central Nepal, one of the worst disasters ever in the Himalayas. KATMANDU, Nepal — About a week ago, when Tej Bahadur Gurung, the director of a Himalayan tour company, read reports of a powerful cyclone headed for India, he thought little of it, dismissing it as “just news.”
As the death toll rose to 31, many began to question why so many lightly equipped trekkers had been led by expedition companies over the path despite the approaching bad weather. But on Sunday, he said, as unseasonable rains began to lash Katmandu, the Nepali capital, he began to worry about his colleagues and seven Indian clients trekking the Annapurna Circuit in central Nepal. By that point in their two-week hike, they should have been at Khyang, a village more than 12,000 feet above sea level in the barren ridges of the Himalayas. They were at a point in the trail where their telephones were inoperable, so he called a local resident of a village some distance below, and asked him to go travel up to Khyang by foot, and alert the travelers. He hoped, rather than believed, that this directive would bear fruit.
“Concerned with the latest human casualties, I want to assure that the government will make efforts to install early warning centers for weather along the important sectors, mainly in the Himalayas areas and along the rivers,” Prime Minister Sushil Koirala said in a statement, urging support from the private sector and nonprofit organizations. A guide who worked for his company finally managed to call on Wednesday, still stuck in Khyang, where several feet of snow had accumulated since the storm hit on Tuesday. The guide’s message was short: “We lost three clients. Some Canadians died. We need a rescue.” Then the phone cut out.
Rescue attempts by private trekking companies, a nonprofit expedition association and the Nepalese Army continued on Friday, as some agencies estimated that 100 people were still missing after Tuesday’s storm. “The reports never said that bad weather was coming to Nepal,” said Mr. Gurung, with evident frustration. “I didn’t connect it — I thought it would be a little rain, some snow, some clouds. We are not weather experts.”
Prakash Adhikari, chief executive of the Himalayan Rescue Association of Nepal, said the death toll could rival or exceed that of the last major trekking disaster, in 1995, when another storm and avalanche killed over 60 people on the Gokyo Circuit near Mount Everest and required hundreds of trekkers to be airlifted. As the death toll rose to 31 on Friday after this week’s intense snowstorm and avalanche — an aftereffect of the devastating cyclone — many involved in Nepal’s robust, expedition-centered tourism industry began to question why so many hikers were stranded on mountains in the midst of a weather event that appeared to have been predicted. Some tour operators blamed the government for not warning them; others suggested that the trekkers themselves and the companies that ran the tours were eager, perhaps overly so, to complete the trek.
A guide with the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal, who had led a daylong expedition on Thursday, said he expected the death toll to rise, though it was difficult to find either victims or survivors. The army told the agency that it had found four more dead trekkers on Friday. Meteorologists had some indication that the effects of Cyclone Hudhud would be felt in Nepal well before the snowstorm hit. Michael Fagin, lead forecaster at EverestWeather.com, said he warned his clients about the possibility of fallout from the cyclone on Oct. 3. His clients, experienced climbers on Nepal’s higher peaks, are outfitted with satellite phones and state-of-the-art gear.
On Thursday, Ang Pemba Sherpa, who worked on the rescue expedition, took a helicopter into the villages on one side of the Annapurna Circuit, in the Manang district. Amid the craggy mountain peaks and snow, the only clues to life were a series of thin tracks in snow that reached six and a half feet deep in places. He followed those tracks on foot and in a helicopter, but found only wild deer. But trekkers tackle relatively easier, lower altitudes and are often less experienced, traveling without sophisticated gear.
One series of footsteps, which he was sure belonged to a human, led to a small cave nestled beside icy Tilicho Lake. For guides and trekking companies, many of which lost employees and clients and are now facing the possibility of a diminished tourist season for years to come, the immediate shock of the disaster gave way to recriminations.
“The government should have alerted the trekking operators and the agencies that this might affect us,” said Mr. Gurung, managing director of Nepal Alternative Treks. The Nepal Meteorological Forecasting Division did issue at least one report about the cyclone, on Sunday, but by that time, many of the trekkers on the Annapurna Circuit were well on their way, and unreachable by phone.
To address that shortcoming and prevent future catastrophes, the prime minister of Nepal announced on Thursday that the government would put in place an early weather warning system.
“I want to assure that the government will make efforts to install early warning centers for weather along the important sectors, mainly in the Himalayas areas and along the rivers,” Prime Minister Sushil Koirala said in a statement.
But it was unclear whether warnings would have kept trekkers and their guides off the mountains anyway. Many tour operators and guides said they did not usually look to the government for warnings about weather, and described October as the season’s clearest, most ideal month. Kusang Sherpa, a guide working with a group from Terra Ultima, a Quebec-based tour company, said his brother had called him on Oct. 7 to warn him about rains predicted in the area, but he hesitated, unwilling to call off the trek.
“This is something we usually find out ourselves,” he said about adverse weather. When the storm hit on Tuesday, he was walking about 15 minutes ahead with some in the group, and he watched as an avalanche buried a colleague and two clients, all women, on the way to Khyang.
Bikram Neupane, rescue coordinator for the Himalayan Rescue Association, said that generally, neither foreign trekkers nor their Nepali guides check weather forecasts before beginning the journey. “They’re planning these trips for months or years,” he said. “They’re not looking at the weather. They’re not looking at the Internet.”
And even if there are signs of bad weather, trekkers tend to push ahead. “Generally, there’s pressure to keep going,” he said. “They don’t want to turn back.”
Rescue efforts by private trekking companies, a nonprofit expedition association and the Nepali Army continued on Friday, as some agencies estimated that 100 people were still missing after Tuesday’s storm.
Prakash Adhikari, chief executive of the Himalayan Rescue Association of Nepal, said the death toll could rival or exceed that of the last major trekking disaster, in 1995, when another storm and avalanche killed more than 60 people on the Gokyo Circuit near Mount Everest and required hundreds of trekkers to be airlifted.
A member of the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal, who had led a daylong expedition on Thursday, said he expected the death toll to rise, though it was difficult to find either victims or survivors. The army told the agency that it had found four more dead trekkers on Friday.
On Thursday, Ang Pemba Sherpa, who worked on the rescue expedition, took a helicopter into the villages in one part of the Annapurna Circuit, in the Manang district. Amid the craggy mountain peaks and snow, the only clues to life were a series of thin tracks in snow that reached six and a half feet deep in places. He followed those tracks on foot and in a helicopter, but found only wild deer.
One series of footsteps, which he was sure belonged to a human, led to a small cave nestled beside icy Tilicho Lake, at 16,000 feet one of the highest lakes in the world.
“I tried to walk, but there was this much fresh snow,” he said, pointing to his chest. His helicopter hovered by the cave, hoping to wake resting travelers, but no one came out.“I tried to walk, but there was this much fresh snow,” he said, pointing to his chest. His helicopter hovered by the cave, hoping to wake resting travelers, but no one came out.
The trekking association rescued 77 trekkers and guides on Thursday in the sparse, barren towns near Phu, a village where three yak herders had also been buried by an avalanche. On Friday, rescuers concentrated on the villages around Thorong La Pass. With the army, the association rescued at least 48 people, according to local officials. Meanwhile, some tour operators are beginning to worry about the threat to their prime seasons. Mr. Fagin said that in the past 10 years, Nepal has been hit with increasingly worse weather stemming from cyclones in October.
Many tour operators and guides said they were unaccustomed to adjusting treks and expeditions for severe weather. One tour operator, Sujoy Das, said he had canceled October treks out of a sense that the weather over the past decade in Nepal was slowly changing for the worse.
“This is Nepal,” said Kusang Sherpa, a guide working with a Quebec-based travel company, Terra Ultima. Three Canadian women affiliated with the company, including a tour leader, died after being caught in the avalanche. Although extreme weather is considered noteworthy in Europe and America, he said, the Himalayas is accustomed to it. . Mr. Gurung said he was not willing to cancel October treks just yet, but agreed that the weather had declined.
Tej Bahadur Gurung, the managing director of Nepal Alternative Treks, said his company had taken seven Indians on a tour of the circuit. Three are believed to have died, though their bodies have yet to be recovered. “The weather has been changing for the past two or three years,” he said. “There have been rains, clouds, snow — tourists can’t see anything.”
The storm that caught the trekkers by surprise was the tail end of a cyclone that hit the Indian coast a week ago. Mr. Gurung said he had read news reports about it.
“It was just news, it wasn’t a warning,” he said. “I didn’t connect it because I thought it would be a little rain, snow, some clouds. We’re not weather experts.”
But on Sunday, when heavy rains lashed Katmandu, the capital, he found a snowstorm warning for Annapurna. He knew that his team was on a section of the circuit where they would not have cellphone service for about a week, so he called a resident of the closest village to the team and asked him to get out the word that they should not continue.
Mr. Gurung said he did not hear from his team until Wednesday, when a local guide called him on a satellite phone. The conversation lasted seconds.
“The weather has been changed for the past two or three years,” Mr. Gurung said. “Every October we’ve been experiencing bad weather.”
Still, he said, he never thought about canceling the treks in October.
“We thought maybe this is an exception,” he said. “It won’t happen again and again.”