In May 1996, two ill-fated tourist expeditions attempted to reach the summit of Everest with disastrous consequences. Five of the 16 climbers would die.
One of the problems was that they were not adequately prepared for the 'death zone' - the area above 7600 metres, where the air becomes almost too thin to breathe.
The two groups left Camp Four, each climber carrying 18 hours worth of oxygen. This should have been plenty, but with so many people climbing, at certain points during the ascent they had to queue where it was only safe for one person to traverse at a time. After 18 hours some people had only just made it to the summit.
A search party set off and found a group of five people but had to leave two behind for dead because they were not strong enough to descend with them.
Further up, the two most experienced climbers of the groups perished. They had made it to the top but at the cost of their lives.
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