Key Takeaways:

• Four bodies have been recovered, including two climbing guides and two kitchen staff
• Twelve kitchen staff members remain missing after the avalanche at Himlung Himal Base Camp
• Rescue teams searched through around 14 feet of avalanche debris and snow before suspending operations
• The NNMGA says recovery efforts will resume when weather and mountain conditions improve

KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 29 The search for twelve kitchen staff still missing after Sunday's avalanche at Himlung Himal Base Camp in Manang has been paused, rescuers said on Monday, after the volunteer team recovered four bodies and concluded no one else had survived. 'We recovered four bodies, making it clear that no one survived,' said Mingma G., the IFMGA-certified guide who led the rescue operation and founder of Imagine Nepal, one of the expedition companies operating at the base camp. The Nepal National Mountain Guide Association (NNMGA), which organised the eight-member volunteer team, said the operation had been paused 'due to the prevailing conditions' and would resume when it is safe to recover the remaining bodies. The avalanche struck amid heavy snowfall and continuous rain on Sunday. NNMGA initially reported 16 people missing - 14 kitchen staff and two climbing guides. The two guides were among the bodies recovered, along with two kitchen staff: Chhebi Bhote and Pasang Bhote were brought down on Sunday, followed by Birendra Gurung and Ghan Shyam Rai on Monday. Twelve kitchen staff remain missing. Initial estimates after the avalanche had put the number missing at 10; that toll rose to 16 as more people were accounted for. 'No one had believed that Himlung Base Camp could experience something of that scale,' Mingma G. said of the slide, which NNMGA said left roughly 14 feet of snow across the site. Digging through it by hand became 'extremely difficult and dangerous' as freezing temperatures and unstable conditions set in, the association said. The eight guides who carried out the search - Sherpa, Pasang Kaji Sherpa, Pimba Tenzing Bhote, Ashish Gurung, Tsering Pemba Sherpa, Bikram Karki, Dandu Sherpa and Pasang Rinzi Sherpa, all IFMGA-certified - took part voluntarily and without payment, NNMGA said. The association also thanked expedition operators Imagine Nepal and Himalayan Holidays, helicopter operators Prabhu Helicopter and Heli Kailash, and Nepal Police in Chame, Manang, for their support. The Nepal Mountaineering Association had earlier expressed solidarity with the expedition team and hoped for their safe return as the search continued. NNMGA said it would keep monitoring snow and mountain conditions and make 'every possible effort' to recover the remaining bodies once it is safe to return. Mingma G further added that the pause was on the rescue team's side specifically, and that organisers may have separate plans of their own. 'We came to search for life,' NNMGA said. 'We stayed to recover the lost. We will not forget them.'