Disaster in Nepal

Why Did So Many People Die in Nepal?

We'd known about the storm for days, so how come hundreds of trekkers were caught off guard?

By: Sam Moulton and Grayson Schaffer

Annapurna horror

Till now 39 tourists dead. 40 missing. The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/nepal/11170835/Annapurna-horror-I-saw-a-Nepalese-boy-and-his-face-was-frozen.-He-began-to-cry-we-both-did.html

6 feet of snow overnight.

e casualties among trekkers in blizzards and floods tend to be higher in the peak autumn season, since heavy rains are not expected. However, weather experts say October is when trekkers and mountaineers have to most careful because it is the cyclone season in the Bay of Bengal.

“Given that there is mobile and internet access along the Annapurna circuit, you cannot blame weather alone,” says climate analyst Ngamindra Dahal, “this wasn’t a surprise storm. The real question is why weren’t the warnings heeded?”

Indeed, Indian and Nepal meteorological offices had been warning about heavy precipitation from the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud as it veered north towards Nepal ever since it made landfall on 12 October. International tv channels warned of heavy rain in western and central Nepal. Two days before the storm arrived, Nepali media had warned farmers to protect their harvests.

The information was there, but it doesn’t seem to have got to the trekkers high up behind the Annapurnas. The question is why.

By the time trekkers reach the foot of the pass, Thorong Phedi, a tiny outpost with a few bare-bones lodges at 14,600 feet, most have been hiking for more than a week but haven’t been higher than 12,000 feet, the elevation of the Rocky Mountains. Many people head straight over the pass from Thorong Phedi, hoping to beat altitude sickness by getting over the pass and descending before symptoms set in. Others spend the night at Thorong Phedi High Camp, at 16,240 feet, to give their bodies an extra night to adapt to altitude before making the final push over the pass. But even with that extra night, trekkers are ascending Thorong La far quicker than they typically hike up to Everest Base Camp. The general rule of acclimatization above 10,000 feet is that you’re supposed to sleep only 1,000 feet higher than you slept the night before. Regardless of where trekkers start, heading up and over Thorong Pass in a day or two puts them at serious risk for altitude sickness. At a minimum, movements and judgement are impaired.