In this May 19, 2010 file photo, clouds hover above the world's highest peak Mount Everest, as seen from Syangboche, about 125 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Katmandu, Nepal. A team of American scientists and researchers is setting up a laboratory at Mount Everest to study the effects of high altitude on humans. Team leader Dr. Bruce Johnson and eight other team members flew to the airstrip at Lukla, near Everest, on Friday, April 20, 2012. (AP Photo/ Binod Joshi)
KATMANDU, Nepal – A Nepalese mountaineering official says a major avalanche has swept the western slopes of Mount Everest. It injured at least one Sherpa guide and panicked hundreds of climbers trying to reach the world’s highest peak.
Tilak Pandey of Nepal’s Mountaineering Department said Saturday that the avalanche swept the slopes late in the previous afternoon near the Camp 1 area, about 6,100 meters (20,000 feet) altitude.
One Nepalese Sherpa guide was hit by the avalanche and was flown to a hospital in the capital, Katmandu.
The avalanche came as the hundreds of mountaineers were preparing to climb Everest’s slopes after weeks of acclimatizing at base camp. Climbers attempt to reach the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) summit during mid-May when weather gets favorable.