The four were part of an expedition team of seven Japanese climbers seeking to climb the world’s seventh highest peak.[break]
The missing climbers have been identified as Pasang Gelu Sherpa, 47, Osamu Tanabe, 49, Toshio Yamamoto, 36, and Daisuke Honda, 32.
Of the four surviving Japanese climbers, two – Noboru Kudo and Hiroshi Isoda – were airlifted to Kathmandu on Wednesday and were treated for minor injuries at a hospital. They flew to Bangkok on Thursday, according to Bijay Sharma, proprietor of Cosmo Trek, local organizer of the expedition.
The two remaining survivors at the Dhaulagiri base camp, Ryuseki Hiraoka and Kazuaki Shimada, are carrying out a search operation along the mountain’s slopes. They were unable to trace anything by Thursday evening.
Laxman Bhattarai, spokesperson of the Ministry of Tourism, said aerial search has been postponed as ground search is better suited for snowy conditions.
The missing climbers had arrived in Kathmandu in early September and had left for Dhaulagiri on September 10.
The avalanche struck around 10 am Tuesday. It was snowing heavily in Dhaulagiri until September 21, according to Kumar Chhetri, the manager of Cosmo Trek. The recent snowfall is believed to have contributed to the avalanche.
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