india

Updated: May 18, 2019 08:50 IST

A day after the death of two Indian climbers on Mt Kanchenjunga, two more Indian climbers including one soldier died on Mt Everest and Mt Makalu on Thursday. And an ace Indian mountaineer Dipankar Ghosh, 54, went missing from the latter, at 8,481 m, the world’s fifth highest peak, hours after becoming only the second Indian civilian to climb his seventh peak above 8,000 metres.

According to Mingma Sherpa, chairman of the Seven Summit Treks, which organised the Everest and Makalu expeditions, Ravi Thakur, 28, died at Camp IV after returning from the Everest summit at around 10: 00 pm .

Narayan Singh, 34, an Indian army officer, died while returning after scaling Makalu in Sankhuwasabha district.

According to his Facebook page, Thakur is a resident of Gurugram.

Sherpa hypothesised that he might have died in his sleep from lack of oxygen. He was found dead in his tent.

He added that Singh died at a height of 8,200 meters when he, along with other members, were descending from the summit on Thursday night.

Their deaths follow the deaths of two other climbers from Bengal, Biplab Baidya, 48, and Kuntal Karar, 44, near the top of Mt. Kanchenjunga, on Wednesday.

Two other members of the same team, Rudra Prasad Haldar and Ramesh Roy, fell ill but were rescued using helicopter on Friday morning.

“Haldar and Roy are stable. They have frostbite in their hands. They have been admitted at Grande International Hospital on Friday,” said Ang Phula Sherpa of Peak Promotion, the Kathmandu-based agency that organised their expedition.

“Ghosh climbed the summit of Mt Makalu on Thursday afternoon, but was descending at a pace slower than other members of the team. The Sherpa accompanying him said they were trying to adjust with his pace but lost sight of him due to extreme weather,” said Thaneswar Guragai of Seven Summit Treks, the Kathmandu-based agency that organised his expedition.

Ghosh did not reach camp IV till Thursday night.

Of the 14 peaks above 8,000 metres, Indians can access only nine, as the rest are in Pak-Occupied-Kashmir. Debashis Biswas is the only other Indian civilian to have climbed seven peaks above 8,000 metres.