KATHMANDU: All nine members of a South Korean climbing expedition were confirmed dead Saturday (Oct 13) after a violent snowstorm devastated their camp on Nepal's Mount Gurja, one of the deadliest mountaineering accidents to hit the Himalayan nation in recent years. “[A recovery team] could see the bodies of the climbers scattered near the camp.”

Villagers who reached base camp Saturday afternoon found the bodies of four South Korean climbers, two Nepalese guides and another person yet to be identified, while the search was continuing for two more, police official Bir Bahadur Budamagar said, according to the Associated Press. KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A group of five South Korean climbers and four Nepali climbers and porters has been reported missing after a storm hit a camp on a Himalayan peak in west Nepal, officials said on Saturday. Tourism Ministry official Rameshwar Niraula said the storm struck the group at the base camp of Mount Gurja, a mountain of 7,913 metres (25,961 feet), on Saturday. He said all the tents had been flattened, reduced to a tangled mess of tarpaulin and broken polls, and the climbers' bodies were scattered across a wide area, including some in a river bed some 500 metres (1,640 feet) away from the main camp. The conditions were too icy to continue the search," pilot Siddartha Gurung told AFP. Wangchu Sherpa, of the Trekking Camp Nepal agency, which provided support to the climbers, said: “Our rescue operation is continuing and we are trying to find details.”

Officials said it was unlikely the bad weather would clear on Saturday and the base camp is at least a one-day trek from the nearest village. The group of South Korean climbers and their Nepali guides had been camped at the foot of the 7,193m Mount Gurja since early October, waiting for a window of good weather so they could attempt to reach the summit. Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Kim Chang-ho has won awards for his mountaineering efforts

Local media report that experienced climber Kim Chang-ho, the first South Korean to reach the summits of the world's 14 highest mountains without using supplemental oxygen, is among the dead. Rarely-climbed Gurja was first summited in 1969 by a Japanese team but no one has stood on its summit for 22 years, according to the Himalayan Database. Four climbers have previously perished on Gurja's flanks and a total of 30 have successfully reached its peak -- a fraction of the more than 8,000 people who have summited Everest, the world's highest mountain. Image copyright Frank Bienewald/Getty Image caption Nepal is home to eight of the world's 14 highest peaks

Nine climbers died when a violent snowstorm destroyed their camp on a Himalayan peak in western Nepal.
Five South Korean climbers and four Nepali guides die after a snowstorm destroys their camp on a Himalayan peak in Nepal.