Climate Change Alert: Melting Ice on Everest Reveals Tons of Garbage and Corpses

• A rescue team hiked and retrieved 53 dead mountaineers from Mt. Everest and its neighbouring mountain Makalu, the fifth highest mountain in the world.
• Along those rescued corpses are lots of garbage, including bottles, cans, mountain gears and even human waste.

The ultimate threat of human-made climate change has come in Mount Everest, as dozens of dead bodies are starting to emerge from the mountain’s glacier. 

Mingma David Sherpa, one of the hired crews of Australian TV producer Anthony Gordon, personally witnessed the chilling experience of frozen human bodies emerging in some “deadly zone” on Mount Everest

Mingma said that he was aware, at that time, that the trail contains over unrescued 200 frozen dead human bodies. Most of these bodies have died and have been lost for several years.

He also admitted that some mountain climbers often used those corpses as “markers for distance and altitude”.

In one of his rescue missions, Mingma said, he saw a set of “Green Boots”, believed to be owned by an Indian mountaineer and that his frozen body served as a marker for some climbers of one of the Everest’s “Death Zone” located 8,000 metres above sea level.

During the rescue mission, Mingma said they have retrieved and rescued 53 frozen corpses from Mount Everest and its neighbouring mountain Makalu, the fifth largest mountain in the world. 

So why are there numerous climbers dying in the Mount Everest? Mingma said its because of climate change. The change in weather and unexpected warmth melt the glacier, causing an avalanche and killing several climbers.

“You can’t predict what could happen anymore. Sometimes there’s too much snow (in the mountains), sometimes less,” he lamented.

Along with these dead bodies emerging are tons of frozen trash, including beer bottles, water bottles, cans, broken mountaineer gears, and even human waste. There are over 5,000 kilograms of human feces that you can see at Everest’s base camp.

The International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) conducted a five-year study and found that the glaciers in Hindu Kush and the Himalayas are rapidly melting and warned that a third of the glacier’s size are expected to shrink if CO2 emissions are not prevented.

“If we have to grow the business, we have to be responsible for the environment,” said 73-year old Ang Tsherimg Sherpa, whose family have been residing near the Everest. 

“My great-grandfather used to lead expeditions since the 1920’s. But the first big clean-up operation was done only in 1996 by Nepal Mountaineering Association. I was involved in it with around 40 other sherpas. We brought back around seven tons of garbage,” Ang added.