Some 900 stranded by blizzard at Mount Everest reach safety

Beijing — About 900 hikers, guides and other staff who were stranded by a weekend blizzard in a valley on the Chinese side of Mount Everest have reached safety, state media said late Tuesday.

The storm struck the area Saturday night, cutting off access to where the hikers were staying in tents at an altitude of more than 16,000 feet.

In all, 580 hikers and more than 300 guides, yak herders and other workers were stranded. About 350 hikers were able to descend by noon Monday and the rest had arrived by Tuesday, state media said, citing the local government.

“Thankfully, some people ahead of us were breaking trail, leaving footprints we could follow – that made it a little easier,” the Reuters news service quotes hiker Eric Wen, 41, as saying. ” … Otherwise, it would’ve been impossible for us to make it out (of the Karma valley) on our own.”

Some hikers reportedly had hypothermia and the official Xinhua News Agency said about a dozen of them were escorted to a meeting point by teams with food, medicine, heating and oxygen supplies.

The scenic area at Mount Everest in China’s Tibet region has been temporarily closed. The 29,000-foot peak, the world’s highest, straddles the border with Nepal.

The storm struck during a weeklong holiday that ends Wednesday. Many Chinese travel at home and abroad during the holiday, which marks the anniversary of the start of Communist Party rule in China on Oct. 1, 1949.

In Nepal, a South Korean climber died in a weekend storm near the summit of Mera Peak, a 21,250-foot Himalayan mountain south of Everest.

Early-season snowstorms hit at least two other areas in western China over the weekend, killing one person and stranding motorists on an icy and snowy highway near a scenic hiking spot.

More than 200 people were evacuated from a remote and rugged valley in the Qilian Mountains in Qinghai province. One person died of hypothermia and altitude sickness.

The area is undeveloped, and authorities later warned people against entering without permission, citing the difficult terrain, unpredictable weather and an average altitude of more than 13,000 feet.

In northwest China’s Xinjiang region, the Kanas scenic area was closed after a snowstorm Sunday that stranded motorists on a nearby highway. The road had been cleared by Monday, state media said.