About 100 people were airlifted to Kathmandu by helicopters of commercial airliners from a landing strip located one-and-a-hour trek downhill of Lukla. [break]
Meanwhile, a Nepal Army (NA) helicopter will start rescuing the stranded from Lukla airport itself from Saturday.
The build-up of stranded people started in Lukla in late-October when only limited flights were operated, also due to bad weather. But from October 31, no flight was conducted at all, thus swelling up the number of visitors in the village, which is a famous gateway to Mt Everest.
The Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA) said that by Friday, there were above 2,000 foreigners and 500 Nepalis stranded there.
NA Spokesperson Ramindra Chhetri said, “We had received letter from the tourism ministry and the use of Army chopper has been approved for the rescue.”
He further said that if the weather condition is favorable, Mi-17 will start the rescue operation from Saturday morning. “We had sent a bell helicopter for rescue (Friday) but it could not land at Lukla airport because of poor visibility,” he added.
Private operators, on the other hand, operated around 20 flights to Surke, a landing strip located one-and-a-half-hour walk downhill of Lukla airport, from where the tourists were flown to Kathmandu. Surke was chosen for landing after choppers couldn´t land at Lukla airport. Mountain, Fishtail, Dynasty and Simrik Air helicopters rescued around 100 tourists on Friday.
Only NA owns 24-seater chopper in the country. The bell choppers owned by private airliners are all five-seaters.
Mahendra Singh Thapa, president of Trekking Agents Association of Nepal, also said, “NA will start the rescue operation from Saturday morning.”
Thapa added that the chopper will bring the stranded people from Lukla to Manthali from where land transportation is available.
“We will be paying NA the operating cost for the flight and we will charge the operating cost -- which is likely to come to around $ 350 to $400 per person -- from tourists,” Thapa said.
Private operators charged $700 to $1,000 per person on Friday.
HRA´s immediate past President Bikram Neupane, who is coordinating the committee formed for rescue operation, said it would take two to three days to rescue all the stranded people if NA chopper operates flights.
Speaking at a press conference organized in the capital on Friday, he said the number of tourists was increasing by 500 to 700 everyday in Lukla as the tourist who were on trekking trails are returning to Lukla.
Shyam Thapa, chief of Himalayan Expedition in Lukla, said increasing number of tourists was making it very difficult for tourism entrepreneurs to accommodate them.
He said 200 tourists moved to Chhaplung where there are seven hotels. “There is shortage of bread, cheese, meat and vegetable,” he said.
There are around 45 hotels with the capacity to accommodate 40 tourists each on an average.
Pokhara-Jomsom flights cancelled too
Tourist planning to visit Jomsom have been disappointed as no flights came into operation in the Pokhara-Jomsom sector for the past three days.
According to officials at Pokhara Airport, there have been no flights in Pokhara-Kathmandu sector as well. “Hundreds of tourist have been waiting for hours everyday at the airport,” one of the employees of the airport said.
Some of the tourists have returned back to capital by road after there was no sign of weather to improve. Altogether, around two dozen scheduled flights have been suspended on a daily basis.
Related story
690 tourists stranded in Kathmandu and Manthali due to bad weat...
-1200x560-1771928761.webp)
