Mount Everest가 지구 온난화의 영향으로, 유사이래도 얼어있던 Glacier가 녹아 내리기 시작하고 있다는 반가운 소식이면서도, 앞으로 세계의 지붕인 히말라야 산맥을 정상들을 정복하려는 Mount climber들에게는 김 빠지는 뉴스가 되기도 할것 같은 생각이 든다.
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6016997450001/#sp=show-clips
Mount Everest에 태고이래로 쌓여 있던 빙하가 녹아내리면서(Melting glaciers) 그동안 등반하다 사고로 목숨을 잃었지만, 시체를 찾지 못했던 등반가들의 시체가 그모습을 드러내면서, 원정대들의 발굴 및 구조작업에 관심이 모아지고 있다. BBC의 보도에 의하면, 지구 온난화로 살인적인 히말라야산 등산의 무서운 비밀의 장막이 벗겨지고 있다는 것이다.
Everest산정상을 정복하고져, 등반을 시도하다 목숨을 잃은 사람들의 숫자는, 1921년부터 오늘에 이르기까지 무려300명이상이라고 한다. 그들중 약 2/3 이상은 얼음과 눈속에 파묻혀 있다는 것이다. 1953년 Edmund Hillary경과 Tenzing Norgay씨가 Everest산 정상을 첫번째로 정복한 등반가였었다고 한다.
"지구의 온난화 때문에 두꺼운 얼음과 빙하가 빠른속도로 녹아 내리고있어 그동안 사고로 목숨을 잃고 눈속에 파묻혀 있던 시체들이 최근 몇년 사이에 서서히 그 모습을 드러내고 있는 것이다"라고, 전임 네팔등반가 협회 회장을 지냈던 Ang Tshering Sherpa씨가 그간의 상황을 밝히고 있다.
한국인으로서는 1979년도에 2번째 정상도전에 성공하고 하산하는 길에, 1000미터 아래로 떨어지는 사고를 당해 목숨을 잃었던, 고상돈씨가 기억에 남아 있다.
The BBC also interviewed a government official who had retrieved about 10 dead bodies from the mountain in recent years who said that “clearly more and more of them are emerging now.”
Famous remains on the deadly mountain have included a body dubbed “Green Boots,” by climbers, believed to be the corpse of an Indian climber who died while descending from the summit in 1996. The body, wearing neon green climbing boots, became a landmark for climbers, although there are reports that it is no longer visible. In 1999, the well-preserved body of famous British mountaineer George Mallory was discovered on Everest, 75 years after his death. Mallory's remains were subsequently covered with a cairn. It is not clear whether he ever reached Everest's summit.
Retrieving bodies from the mountain is fraught with danger. The most difficult bodies to retrieve are near the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) summit in the low-oxygen area known by mountaineers as the death zone.
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In 2017, a team of local Sherpa climbers recovered the body of an Indian climber that had been on Everest for a year. The expedition sparked heated debate in the mountaineering community about the morality of risking more lives to retrieve bodies from one of the most unforgiving places on Earth.
"To get one body off of the mountain, they are risking the lives of 10 more people,” said Tshering at the time.
The high-risk expedition to retrieve the body of the Indian climber and two others from Everest was financed with about $92,000 from the Indian state of West Bengal. "It was a very dangerous operation," West Bengal state official Sayeed Ahmed Baba acknowledged. "It was difficult to find Sherpas who were willing to go. But we had to do it for the families."
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Last year, officials in Nepal confirmed that the bodies of a Japanese climber and a Macedonian climber were found on the mountain. Five climbers died on Everest in 2018.
The BBC reports that bodies are also being removed from the northern side of the mountain, which is in China’s autonomous region, Tibet.
The spring climbing season, when weather conditions are best on the world's highest peak, began March 1 and ends May 31.
CHINA CLOSES ITS EVEREST BASE CAMP TO TOURISTS AS PART OF CLEAN UP CAMPAIGN
The number of climbers attempting to scale the peak in recent years has even sparked concern about overcrowding, further exacerbating the dangers on the mountain. Some 563 climbers scaled the peak from Nepal's southern side in 2018.
Some 293 people have lost their lives since the first attempt to scale Everest in 1921, 118 of whom were Sherpa guides according to mountaineer Alan Arnette, in a blog post. A median of 4 people have died on the mountain every year since then, he explained. “Focusing on modern times from 2000 to 2018 deaths have increased to 6 annual deaths, heavily driven by the 28 Sherpa deaths on the South side in 2014 and 2015 from the serac release onto the Icefall and the [Nepal 2015] earthquake,” Arnette said.
China said in January it would reduce the number of climbers by one-third this year as part of plans for a major cleanup of the mountain that straddles the border between the countries. China also closed its Everest base camp to tourists for an indefinite period earlier this year as part of the cleanup effort.
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Scientists have highlighted the impact of climate change on the famous mountain. In 2017, experts from the U.K.’s University of Leeds, University of Sheffield, Aberystwyth University and the National Environmental Research Council (NERC) drilled into the Khumbu Glacier to record temperatures deep below its surface.
The Nepali glacier is located on Mount Everest’s slopes.
The research, which was published in the journal Scientific Reports in 2018, revealed: “a minimum ice temperature of only −3.3 °C [26.06 F], with even the coldest ice being a full 2 °C warmer than the mean annual air temperature.”
“These results indicate that high-elevation Himalayan glaciers are vulnerable to even minor atmospheric warming and will be especially sensitive to future climate warming,” explained the University of Leeds, in a statement.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/melting-mount-everest-glaciers-reveal-dead-climbers-bodies-report
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