The Himalaya by the Numbers: A Statistical Analysis - Himalayan ...

Charts D-26b and D-27b show avalanche death to total death ratios for members and
hired personnel by geographic regions for the spring and autumn climbing seasons.
Icefall and serac collapses, a related form of avalanching but not included in the data
above, have been largely confined to the Khumbu Icefall on Everest. The worst icefall
collapse was on the 1970 Japanese Everest ski expedition led by Yuichiro Miura when
6 Sherpas were killed by an early morning serac collapse at 5700m. This was the third
deadliest accident for Sherpas, the worst being the 1972 Manaslu avalanche described
earlier that killed ten Sherpas and a 1922 Everest expedition avalanche below the
North Col that killed seven Sherpas.
Chart D-27c shows by time of day the number of fatal avalanche events and total
deaths for both members and hired personnel (a fatal avalanche event is an avalanche
that kills one or more climbers). As shown, the majority of the fatal avalanches occur
in the very early morning hours when temperatures are the lowest or during the
late morning hours after the sun has warmed up the snow pack. But the two worst
avalanches occurred at 3:15 a.m. (15 killed on Manaslu in 1972) and 4:00 p.m. (18
killed on Kang Guru in 2005), both outside of the primary avalanche times, illustrating
that no time of day is completely safe.
One of Nepal’s Deadliest Avalanches Hits Manaslu
From a Reuter’s Dispatch by Elizabeth Hawley – April 14, 1972
One Korean Kim Yae-Sup and two Sherpas survived a huge avalanche that completely
destroyed the Koreans’ C3 (6500m) on Manaslu early in the morning of April 10. Kim
who actually survived five avalanches and gale force winds that terrible morning briefly
recounted his horror to Reuter’s this morning in Shanta Bhawan Hospital while nurses
gently bathed his badly frostbitten feet in warm water. He was brought to Kathmandu exbasecamp
by helicopter.
The avalanche took the lives of four Koreans, one Japanese and ten Sherpas. One Korean
dead was the climbing leader Kim Ho-Sup, who had vowed to conquer Manaslu this time
and recover the body of another brother Kim Ki-Sup, who died last spring at 7600m on the
same side of Manaslu from fierce winds that swept him off his feet.
Kim said he woke about midnight that fatal night to make some hot water and to prepare
for an early climbing start. Two Sherpas commented to him that there had been too much
snowfall. They were worried about the snow conditions on the mountainside. At about 3:15
a.m., Kim heard the terrible noise of the huge avalanche and woke two members, Park
Chang-Hee and Kazunari Yasuhisha, in the same tent. They tried to get outside, but the
avalanche struck first and they were carried 800m downwards from C3 (at 6500m) with
three shattering bounces before on the 4th bound they stopped moving.
Both Kim’s companions were still alive and spoke to him: Park said the whole midsection
of his torso was crushed and his spine was broken; Yasuhisha told Kim his left rib and
right shoulder were broken. Then another avalanche struck them, fatally burying Kim’s
two friends and carrying him 300m further down. Three more avalanches hit Kim, but he
survived with frostbitten feet and fingers; possible internal injuries are not yet known. “I
think I am a very lucky boy and God is with me,” Kim said this morning in his hospital
bed. Kim’s family is Christian.
There were four other tents in C3. In one were three Koreans, Kim Ho-Sup, Oh Sae-Keun,
and Song Joon-Haeng and two other tents held ten Sherpas. All perished in this disaster.
Death Analysis 109