Russian climber first foreigner to die on Mount Everest in 2022
The body of 55-year-old Pavel Kostrikin, who died on Saturday after falling ill, will be brought to Kathmandu when the current cloudy weather conditions improve.
Over 900 foreign mountaineers have received permits to climb 26 Himalayan peaks in Nepal, including 316 permits for Mount Everest, during the season ending in May.
Russian climber Pavel Kostrikin has died at Mount Everest, the first reported death of a foreigner on the world's highest peak in the current climbing season that began in March.
Kostrikin, 55, died at the camp, which is located at an altitude of around 5,360 metres during a rotation on the 8,848-metre mountain on Saturday, a Nepali official said on Sunday.
"The Russian climber fell sick at Camp II and died after being brought to the Camp I," Bhishma Kumar Bhattarai, an official of Nepal's Department of Tourism told Reuters news agency, without giving further details.
Camp II on the normal southeast ridge route on Everest is located at a height of around 6,400 metres.
Hiking officials said the body of Kostrikin would be brought to Kathmandu when the current cloudy weather conditions improve.
The fatality was also confirmed by Mingma Gelu Sherpa of Seven Summits Treks, the agency that handled his expedition.
It was the second death on the Nepal side of the mountain this climbing season. Last month a Nepali climber, Ngimi Tenji Sherpa, who was carrying equipment uphill, was found dead on the mountain.
READ MORE: Two climbers die of exhaustion on Mount Everest descent
Perilous expedition
Eleven Nepali climbers reached the summit on Saturday, the first of hundreds of climbers expected to scale the world's highest mountain from its southern approach in the coming weeks.
Mount Everest has been climbed 10,657 times since it was first scaled in 1953, from both the Nepali and Tibetan sides of the mountain.
Many have climbed the peak multiple times and 311 people have died so far, according to The Himalayan Database.
On average, around five climbers die every year on the world's highest peak. But in 2019, 11 people died, with four of the deaths blamed on overcrowding that year.
Nepal has issued 316 permits to mountaineers including 17 Russians for this year's spring climbing season, which runs from mid-April to the end of May.
Mountain climbing is the main tourism activity in Nepal and a key source of income as well as employment. The country has eight of the world's 14 highest mountains.
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