Seven French climbers and 11 Nepalese mountain guides were killed in a massive avalanche last week in the north-west of Nepal, the head of the Himalayan Rescue Association said Monday.
"All the team members of the French Mount Kangaru expedition have died," Bikram Neupane, president of the Himalayan Rescue Association, told reporters in the capital after he visited the site and talked to rescue teams.
The private association sent a 10-member rescue team to find survivors of the October 20 avalanche, Neupane said. The lead rescuer, Padam Ghale, told him that the snow depth precluded finding anyone alive.
"Because there was so much snow, it was impossible to find anyone," Neupane said. "Even the army couldn't find anything looking by helicopter."
The team was hit by the avalanche at a 5,000-metre (16,400 foot) base camp near the Anapurna Mountain range as they attempted an ascent of the 6,981-metre (22,987 foot) Mount Kangaru.
A tourism official, who declined to be named, said Sherpas travelling with the missing climbers and trekkers reported a massive avalanche that they survived because they were camped at a lower elevation.
"Until the afternoon of October 20, the weather condition was cloudy with mild winds but it suddenly deteriorated leading to a heavy snowstorm triggering a massive avalanche which had trapped all the five tents pitched at a high altitude basecamp" he said.
Television reports said the four porters who survived were rescued by helicopters on Sunday when searchers took advantage of clearer weather on Kangaru, a minor but technically difficult mountain.
Speaking from Pokhara one of the rescued porters, Lhakpa Tshering Lama, told television stations they escaped because they were outside the tents when the snowstorm hit.
Neupane said discussions were underway with the French embassy and government officials on how to proceed ahead of the winter which would make it difficult to send in teams to search for bodies.
The path leading to the base camp was covered in "eight to 10 metres of snow because of the avalanche," Neupane said.
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