3 Israeli victims named, as Nepal death toll rises to over 30

Three Israelis killed in an avalanche in Nepal were identified Thursday, as the death toll from the blizzard in the Himalayas rose to 31.

One of the Israelis confirmed killed was named as Agam Luria, 23, from Kibbutz Yifat, in northern Israel’s Jezreel Valley. The second was named later as Nadav Shoham, 30, of Hoshaya, also in the Jezreel Valley. The third was Tamar Ariel, 24, from Masu’ot Yitzhak, a town near Ashkelon. Ariel was the first religious woman to become an Israeli Air Force combat navigator.

There were fears for a fourth Israeli, who had not been heard from since Tuesday’s avalanche.

Search teams in army helicopters Thursday rescued dozens of stranded foreign trekkers and recovered more bodies of victims of a blizzard and avalanches in the mountains of northern Nepal. Local officials said 23 bodies had been found on the popular Annapurna circuit trekking route, while five climbers who were staying at a mountain base camp when it was hit by Tuesday’s avalanche could not be found and were presumed dead. Three Nepalese yak herders were also killed.

About 70 people were still missing along or near the Annapurna trail, said Ganga Sagar Pant of the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal, and the death toll there was expected to rise.

The route, 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of the capital, Katmandu, was filled with international hikers during the peak October trekking season, when the air is generally clear and cool. There were also many Nepalese on the trails because of local festivals.

Government administrator Yama Bahadur Chokhyal said rescuers recovered 10 more bodies from the Thorong La pass area. The bodies were not yet identified.

Chokhyal said 64 more foreign trekkers were rescued from the area on Thursday. Two trekkers from Hong Kong and 12 Israelis were airlifted Wednesday to Katmandu, where they were being treated at a hospital.

They said they survived by taking refuge in a small tea shop along the path.

“I was sure I was going to die on the way to the pass because I lost my group, I lost all the people I was with and I could not see anything,” said Linor Kajan, an injured trekker from Israel, who said she was stuck in waist-deep snow.

“One Nepalese guide who knows the way saw me and asked me to stay with him. And he dragged me, really dragged me to the tea shop. And everybody there was really frightened,” she said.

Another Israeli survivor, Yakov Megreli, said they tried to stay awake in the tea shop to stay warm.

“We tried not to sleep. We tried not to get hypothermia. It was a very frightening and awful situation,” he said.

The blizzard, the tail end of a cyclone that hit the Indian coast a few days earlier, appeared to contribute to an avalanche Wednesday that killed at least eight people in Phu village in neighboring Manang district. The dead included one Indian and four Canadian trekkers as well as three villagers, said government official Devendra Lamichane. The villagers’ bodies were recovered Wednesday, he said.

The foreigners’ bodies were buried in up to two meters (6½ feet) of snow and digging them out will take days, he said. Three Canadian trekkers who survived the avalanche were taken by helicopter to a shelter in a nearby village. No information was immediately available on their condition.

Authorities said five climbers were killed in a separate avalanche about 75 kilometers (45 miles) to the west, at the base camp for Mount Dhaulagiri. The climbers, two Slovaks and three Nepali guides, were preparing to scale the 8,167-meter (26,800-foot) peak, the world’s seventh tallest, said Gyanedra Shrestha of Nepal’s mountaineering department. Their bodies were recovered Thursday.

An avalanche in April just above the base camp on Mount Everest killed 16 Nepalese guides, the deadliest single disaster on the mountain. Climate experts say rising global temperatures have contributed to avalanches in the Himalayas.