A Filipino mountaineer has become the first reported casualty of the 2024 climbing season on Mount Everest, officials confirmed on Thursday.
The climber, identified as 45-year-old Philipp Santiago, had been making his final push toward the summit of the world’s tallest mountain, which stands at 8,849 metres (29,032 feet), when he succumbed to exhaustion after reaching Camp 4 on Wednesday night, according to Himal Gautam of Nepal’s tourism department.
“He died at the place where he was resting,” said Bodha Raj Bhandari of Snowy Horizon Treks and Expedition, the company overseeing Santiago’s expedition.
Efforts are now underway to recover his body and bring it down to base camp.
The 2024 Everest climbing season officially began on May 9 when a group of eight Nepali climbers successfully reached the summit, paving the way for other climbers to make their attempts during the brief window of favourable weather that typically lasts from April through early June.
Since the route opened, more than 50 climbers have already reached the top, with Nepal having issued 458 climbing permits this season.
Each foreign climber is generally accompanied by at least one experienced Nepali guide.
At Everest’s base camp, over a thousand individuals, including international climbers and support teams, are currently gathered, their tents creating a colourful sea of canvas at the mountain’s foot.
Overcrowding continues to be a concern on Everest. In 2019, severe traffic jams near the summit forced climbers to wait in sub-zero conditions for extended periods, heightening the risk of oxygen depletion, altitude sickness, and exhaustion.
That year, overcrowding was cited as a contributing factor in four of the 11 recorded deaths.
Nepal, which boasts eight of the world’s ten highest peaks, attracts hundreds of mountaineers each spring season, drawn by more stable weather conditions.
In 2023, more than 800 people successfully summited Everest, including 74 climbers from the northern Tibetan approach.
Since the pioneering ascent by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953, Everest has evolved into the heart of a thriving mountaineering industry, drawing climbers from around the globe each year.