In May 1996, two ill-fated tourist expeditions attempted to reach the summit of Everest with disastrous consequences. The two separate groups had already braved ice fields and crevasses by the time they reached Camp Four at 8000 metres. They had climbed 2500 metres from Base Camp and now the two teams converged to tackle the final leg to the summit – less than 1000 metres. Yet in the 24 hours that followed, five of the 16 climbers would die.
One of the problems was that they were not adequately prepared for the 'death zone'. This is what climbers call the area above 7600 metres, where the air becomes almost too thin to survive.
The two groups left Camp Four, with each climber carrying 18 hours worth of oxygen. This allowed 12 hours for the ascent, five hours to return and just one hour's supply for error. But because of the large number of people climbing, they found that at certain points during the ascent, they effectively had to queue in places where it was only safe for one person to traverse at a time. Because of this, after 18 hours some people had only just made it to the summit.
In the meantime, a terrible storm descended upon the great mountain, leaving many of the mountaineers, already struggling without oxygen, unable to see where they were going.
A search party from Camp Four set off and found a group of five people huddled together. Of these only three had the strength to follow the rescue team the 300 metres back to camp. Unable to carry the remaining two they had to be left for dead.
Further up the mountain were the two most experienced climbers of the groups. Along with them was a postal worker from Britain who had previously failed to reach the summit the year before. This time round he made it to the top but it cost him £70,000 and his life.
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