The bodies of five South Korean mountaineers who lost their lives climbing the Himalayas were returned to their home country on Oct. 17, with officials attributing the disaster to a “sudden gust of wind.”
The team of nine, including four Nepalese, led by climber Kim Chang-ho, died in Nepal’s worst climbing disaster in two years when the Himalayan peak they were scaling was hit by a storm last week.
Kim had set the record in 2013 for being the fastest to reach the summits of the world’s 14 highest mountains over 8,000 meters (26,250 feet) without using supplemental oxygen.
The team was trying to blaze a new route on the south face of Mount Gurja, Yonhap news agency said, before being found near their base camp about 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) above sea level on the 7,193 meter-high (23,600-foot) peak on Oct. 13.
