KATHMANDU, May 20: The joint Mount Everest Expedition and Sanitation Campaign of army personnel from Nepal and India has collected over 2,000 kg of garbage from around base camp and the routes to the peaks. It plans to spend two more days at base camp to collect more garbage.
According to the Nepal Army´s Directorate of Public Relations (DPR), a first team of the Nepal-India Everest Expedition and Sanitation Campaign successfully climbed Everest at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday. A second team reached the summit on Monday at 7:35 a.m.
Colonel Prakash Jung Karki of the Directorate General of Military Training (DGMT), who is chief liaison officer of the joint expedition, said, “Both teams have climbed the summit but now they plan to collect more garbage.” [break]
“The Campaign teams worked hard for the past one month with the aim of collecting about 4,000 kg of garbage, including the bodies of dead climbers," he said adding,"They have collected empty oxygen cylinders, torn tents, empty food tins and other plastic objects.”
Dozens of expedition teams have ignored what remained after use and so there was a huge amount of garbage from the base camp to the routes to the top, Karki said. Very few expeditons brought back their own garbage, he added. Because of the heavy loads the joint army team plans to bring back garbage to at least Lukla or Namche Bazar.
Colonel Kark informed that out of the total numbers of climbers in the joint expedition, four couldn´t reach the summit because of health reasons. He said, “Two NA personnel returned to base camp because of face swelling, and another suffered from high altitude sickness. One Indian Army member also suffered from high altitude sickness.”
The mountaineering expedition team comprising of 34 members from the two countries had been living at base camp since the last one and half months to mark the diamond jubilee of the first ascent of Everest.
The joint team had been flagged off by Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) Gaurav Shumsher Rana.
Major Sunil Singh Rathor of Nepal Army and Major Ranabir Singh Jamwal of the Indian Army are leading the team from the two armies.
According to the DPR, the successful summit climbers are Major Samir Basnet, Captain Kishor Adhikari, Sergeant Gyanendra Laudari and Corporal Dhirendra Shahi of Nepal Army in the first group, and Major Aditya Karki, Second Lieutenant Bhim Bahadur Bhujel, Warrant Officer Second Class Krishna Bhakta Paudel and Corporals Ramesh Sadaula and Tek Bahadur Thapa in the second group.
Similarly, Major RS Jamwal, Senior Warrant Officer Mingmar Gurung, Army Havildars Sudhir Singh and Chatar Singh and Lance Nayak Sukbir of the Indian Army also climbed the world´s highest peak in the first group on Sunday and Major Manoj Joshi, Warrant Officer R. S. Jalal, Constable Ulmi Kannat, Nayak Hajrai Lal and Rifle Men Sonam Thinlas and Shivaraj Singh in the second group.
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