It happened at night, without warning. A slab avalanche came down on Himlung Base Camp in Narpa Bhumi Rural Municipality, Manang, in the early hours of Sunday, burying tents where expedition support staff were sleeping.
“It came very quietly, without making much noise,” said Mingma Gyalje Sherpa (Mingma G), a senior guide with the Nepal National Mountain Guides Association (NNMGA), recounting the moment Sunday evening from Phu village in Manang. Many of those buried, he said, never realized what was happening.
Two climbing guides, Pasang Bhote and Chhebi Bhote, both from Sankhuwasabha, are confirmed dead. Rescuers recovered their bodies from roughly 15 feet of snow at the base camp and flew them to Chame; they are expected to reach Kathmandu on Monday. Fourteen kitchen and camp-support staff from two expedition outfits working at Himlung, Himalayan Holidays Nepal and Imagine Nepal Treks, remain unaccounted for. Search teams called off operations overnight and plan to resume at first light Monday.
What happened
The avalanche struck early Sunday morning at Himlung Himal, a 7,126-meter peak in Narpa Bhumi Rural Municipality–5. Expedition teams from Himalayan Holidays Nepal and Imagine Nepal Treks had been at the base camp preparing the route and setting up for the climbing season.
Word reached Kathmandu quickly, and rescue teams mobilized within hours. Eleven IFMGA/NNMGA-certified guides flew out from Kathmandu on Sunday afternoon — eight aboard a Prabhu Helicopter, three aboard a Kailash Helicopter.
Of those, seven reached Himlung in the first flight: four from the Prabhu group and three from the Kailash group, among them Mingma G, Ashish Gurung, Pasang Kaji Sherpa and Pemba Tsering Sherpa. The remaining four rescuers, scheduled for a second Prabhu flight, were held back in Chame, the district headquarters of Manang, by deteriorating weather.
Rescuers who reached the site recovered the two bodies from beneath the snow and airlifted them to Chame. “It is very unlikely that the missing people will be found alive, as the tents were buried beneath more than 15 ft of snow,” rescuers who recovered the bodies said. Hopes are fading of finding the missing alive, said Ashish Gurung, a member of the rescue team. The search team has since descended to Phu valley for the night and is due back at base camp Monday morning, NNMGA said.
Nepal Police Deputy Superintendent Shailendra Thapa, a police spokesperson, said further details about the incident were still being gathered, addressing earlier speculation that foreign climbers may also have been caught in the avalanche. Police said the full extent of the damage and casualties has not yet been confirmed — Manang district saw multiple avalanches and landslides Sunday, and authorities are occupied with rescuing other tourists who may have been in the wider base camp area.
The base camp had been busy with more than routine season prep. Himalayan Holidays Nepal was in the middle of readying camps for an all-female student climbing team from the UAE — a 14-member group scheduled to fly into Kathmandu on October 1. The season the camp was being built for is, for now, on hold.
“We could have saved lives today”
Mingma G has spent the days since the avalanche moving between the rescue effort and the phone. His account, given in pieces through Sunday, traces a warning that went unheeded and a rescue that came too late for some.
“We tried our best to convince them to leave Base Camp since Friday and move to the lower valley, but they did not take our warnings seriously and ignored them,” he said.
“We could have saved lives today, but due to bad weather, we reached the accident site only in the evening. Even so, we recovered two bodies,” he said.
Among the missing are two of his own. “My amazing cook, Ash, and his assistant, Kirte, are missing in the avalanche. The rest of my team is safe,” he said. “We still hope to find our friends alive.”
He has also been fielding a flood of calls from people seeking information. “I am receiving several phone calls, which is very disturbing,” he said, asking people to check NNMGA’s official channels for verified updates rather than call him directly.
A second hard year
This is the second mass-casualty avalanche Mingma G has responded to this year. On July 30, an avalanche on Broad Peak in Pakistan killed ten climbers, among them his close friend and longtime climbing partner Kili Pemba Sherpa, lead guide for Imagine Nepal and his teammate on the historic 2021 winter K2 ascent; Nirmal “Nims” Purja, a close friend and frequent expedition partner; and Wang Zhong, a longtime client and friend of both Mingma G and Imagine Nepal.
Mingma G spent the following week leading the high-risk rescue and recovery effort on Broad Peak, working through dangerous terrain in an attempt to reach those caught in the avalanche. Seven weeks later, he is facing another mass-casualty avalanche — this time in Himlung Himal, where members of his own team are among those still missing. After carrying the weight of one tragedy for weeks, he is now being asked to lead another rescue under similarly unforgiving conditions.
A brutal season
Nepal’s mountains have absorbed one disaster after another this year. In late August, a flash flood and mudslide along the Nepal–China border killed and left missing an unconfirmed number of pilgrims and trekkers bound for Kailash and Gosaikunda. Thousands of local residents were also caught in the disaster, with lives lost, people still missing, and thousands displaced from their homes. The scale of the destruction has added another layer of grief to a mountain season already marked by repeated loss.
