Thousands stranded near Mt. Qomolangma
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Thousands of foreign tourists have been stranded in Lukla, the gateway to Mt. Qomolangma, also called Mt. Everest, due to inclement weather that made it impossible for airline companies to operate flights to and from the airstrip there for the past one week, a government official in Solukhumbu district in northeastern Nepal said.
According to Saturday's The Himalayan Times daily, around 2,000 foreign tourists and their porters have spent the past five days stuck in a tiny village 2,800 meters up the slopes of a hill near Mt. Qomolangma due to bad weather, with Nepali Army helicopters set to begin flying the stranded sightseers to safety on Friday.
They have been trapped in Lukla after thick cloud and blustering winds forced airlines to cancel their flights to and from the remote region, officials were quoted by the daily as saying.
Tens of thousands of trekkers and climbers visit the Solukhumbu region every year. Many start their trek from windswept Lukla village where a small airstrip is carved into the rugged mountainside.
Weather officials in Kathmandu said the area had seen "low clouds and high winds" in the past three to five days, making flights by fixed-wing small airplanes difficult and risky.
"Flights by private helicopters are inadequate and their fares out of reach of common budget trekkers," Mahendra Singh Thapa, a senior official from the Trekking Agency Association of Nepal said in a statement.
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