Helicopter crashes near Everest celebrations

A helicopter that was flying to pick up climbers in the Mount Everest area crashed near the base camp today, killing a Nepalese flight attendant and injuring six other people.

Two of the wounded, including the pilot, were in a critical condition and were being flown to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu for treatment.

Few details of the accident were immediately available. Two army rescue helicopters were sent to the area.

Hundreds of climbers and their teams are in the Mount Everest region to mark the 50th anniversary of the conquest of the world’s highest mountain in 1953 by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

Mountaineers gathered to discuss the Himalayan environment during the Mount Everest anniversary celebrations today, and some remembered the more than 175 who died on the world’s tallest mountain.

Some of the 100 Everest summitters attending Nepal’s week-long Everest golden jubilee travelled by bus for two hours today to join local climbers in planting saplings at the International Mountaineers Memorial Park in the mountain town of Kakani.

Sir Edmund Hillary led a parade through Kathmandu yesterday.

He planned to open an Everest photo exhibition today and to speak about what his feat means to Nepal and the world.

The festivities culminate tomorrow with a ceremonial gathering of Everest climbers hosted by Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand, a tea attended by King Gyanendra and Queen Komal, and a banquet with the crown prince and princess.

All those who have summitted Everest are guests of the government. That number has increased by 137 in the past week alone, though some of those may still be coming down from the mountain or may attend the party Sir Edmund’s son Peter is hosting on its slopes.

Sometime during all those feasts, Sir Edmund said he would slip out for a separate dinner with members of the Sherpa community.

The Sherpas helped the British expedition reach the summit in 1953, and Sir Edmund has spent the decades since then buildings schools, hospitals and bridges in their mountain villages.

Tenzing Norgay died in 1986 and is being represented by his son, Jamling, also an Everest summitter, who said yesterday that the first Everest climb benefited mankind.

“They took a step farther into the unknown. They made known that it was possible for us to climb this mountain,” Norgay said.

He runs a trekking and mountaineering business and campaigns for more recognition of the Sherpas who carry equipment, set the climbing ropes and ladders, and guide the Himalayan expeditions.

He said the lesson taught by his father and Sir Edmund is: “You can achieve anything you want if you work as a team.”

Mountaineers drawn to Nepal for the anniversary have taken the opportunity to hold seminars and discussions about their sport, dangers to the Himalayan environment and the poverty of the host country.

“All of us who are approaching these mountains have a responsibility for preserving the local culture,” said Rienhold Messner, an Italian who has climbed most of the world’s tallest peaks and was the first to reach the Everest summit without using bottled oxygen.

He said Nepal has changed in the last decade “and it’s not all our fault,” noting that climbing expeditions are made possible only by the local porters who carry loads of up to 110lbs of equipment and food up to base camp.

Yet because 40% of Nepal’s 23 million people live in poverty, people must take such jobs to feed their families, Messner said.

Poverty has fuelled an insurgency by Maoist rebels, who since 1996 have taken over several remote mountain areas and fought the army and police in a guerrilla war that has cost more than 7,000 lives.

The latest in a series of cease-fires was called in January, but peace talks have made slow progress amid the bickering of Nepal’s political establishment.

Although attacks on foreigners are extremely rare, the political troubles have hurt Nepal’s tourism, the country’s top foreign currency earner, which normally brings in €139m a year and employs 200,000 people.

“Only in a peaceful country is it possible to have strong tourism,” Messner said.