KATHMANDU: A group of highly experienced Sherpa climbers today recovered two bodies of Indian climbers who died above Camp IV on Mt Makalu while descending from the summit point last week.

“We have successfully recovered bodies of Narayan Singh and Dipankar Ghos from above the high camps on the world’s fifth highest mountain,” a renowned high-altitude rescue climber Mingma David Sherpa told THT from Camp III of the mountain.

A team of 14 climbing Sherpas has been mobilised to carry out a search and recovery operation since Wednesday.

Narayan’s body has been recovered a few metres below the summit point while Dipankar’s body was found above Camp IV, Sherpa, who along with Chhang Dawa Sherpa, Director at the Seven Summit Treks, led the search and recovery mission, shared.

“The team is expected to bring the mortal remains down at the base camp by this evening,” Sherpa said. Narayan, a member of the maiden Indian Army expedition to Mt Makalu breathed his last at the height of 8,200 metres while Dipankar from Kolkata, India went missing above Camp IV of the world’s fifth highest mountain when he was returning from the summit point.

According to Mingma Sherpa, Chairman at Seven Summit Treks, another team of nine climbers, coordinated by Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, has been struggling hard to trace the missing Irish professor near the balcony area on Mt Everest.

The team led by Irish mountaineer Noel Hanna spent a day in the death zone of Mt Everest conducting an intensive search for the missing Irish mountaineer Sean Lawless, 39, yesterday.

The team had only found a crampon used by Lawless, an assistant professor in artificial intelligence at the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College, below the balcony area from where Lawless reportedly slipped while descending from the summit point on May 16.

“The team conducted an extensive ground search covering the area between 6,600 m to 8,300 m till this afternoon,” Sherpa quoted the search team members as saying. The team couldn’t find any clue to the missing professor, he said. Based on the information shared by the rescuers, it is suspected that Lawless had fallen into crevasse and perished, Sherpa said. “The team reportedly visualised a huge crevasse below the balcony area from where Lawless’s crampon was recovered,” Sherpa described, “The crevasse is highly inaccessible.”

The ground search is almost over for now, Sherpa added. “As a last-ditch attempt, we are preparing to conduct an aerial search for missing Lawless, depending on weather condition, either later today or tomorrow,” Sherpa concluded.