(CNN) A renowned South Korean climber was among nine people killed when a vicious snowstorm hit their camp on Nepal's Mount Gurja.

Police and locals are working to bring the bodies off the mountain and to Kathmandu, South Korea's Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

A rescue helicopter was dispatched at about 7:15 a.m. Sunday, and by 9:40 a.m. all nine bodies were found, the ministry said. Some bodies had been located Saturday.

An image of Mount Gurja shared by rescue workers.

The nine-person team had been missing since Friday, when officials lost contact with the climbers. It was not clear how much progress they'd made up the 7,193-meter (23,600-foot) Himalayan peak. No climber has summited the mountain, which is far less popular than Mt. Everest, in 22 years.

It also was not exactly clear how they died, but the storm that struck their camp was particularly violent. Capt. Siddartha Gurung, a helicopter pilot who is coordinating the retrieval mission, described a scene of total destruction.

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