KATHMANDU: Nepal commemorated the anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest on Wednesday amid a climbing season marred by the highest death toll in four years and a debate on whether the government should limit permits to prevent dangerous overcrowding on the world’s highest peak.

Government officials said at an event in Kathmandu celebrating the successful climb of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953 that there were no plans to cap permits. Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries, takes in $300 million each year from climbing.

A record number of 381 permits were issued this year. Eleven people have died on Everest, including nine in Nepal, likely due to altitude sickness, which is caused by low amounts of oxygen at high elevation and can lead to headaches, vomiting, shortness of breath and mental confusion.

Because of the altitude, climbers have just hours to reach the top before they are at risk of a pulmonary edema, when the lungs fill with liquid causing respiratory failure. Mountaineers described traffic jams caused by exhausted rookies in the “death zone,” the final phase of the ascent from Camp Four at 8,000 meters (26,240 feet) to the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) peak.

The nine deaths this year on Nepal’s side of the mountain included Don Cash, a sales executive from Utah, and Christopher Kulish, an attorney from Colorado, who both died on their way down from the summit.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2019