KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 16

The bodies of five Russian climbers who perished on Mt. Dhaulagiri on October 7 have been retrieved from 6,900 meters this morning. 

According to Mingma Sherpa, Chairman at Seven Summit Treks, long-line rescuers recovered the bodies of Alexander Dusheyko, Oleg Kruglov, Vladimir Chistikov, Mikhail Nosenko, and Dmitrii Shpilevoi and brought them to the base camp this morning.

Mingma, who is the first South Asian to successfully climb all 14 of the world's 8000ers without repeating a summit, coordinated the retrieval mission on Mt. Dhaulagiri while senior captain at Altitude Air Bibek Khadka conducted the search and evacuation flight at 7,000 meters.

"We have successfully retrieved five bodies as they were pulled by IFMGA guide Dawa Phinjo Bhote and Lakpa Bhote," Mingma, who is now at base camp, said. The recovery mission also involved long-line rescue specialist Lokendra Dhami. "Dhami supported the mission from the ground at the Dhaulagiri base camp," Sherpa said.

The team stayed on the mountain since yesterday after several retrieval missions in the last week failed due to bad weather conditions. "The bodies will be airlifted to Kathmandu shortly to hand them over to their respective families," Sherpa said.

The climbers lost contact with base camp officials and fellow climbers at 11:00 am on October 6 while at an altitude of 7,600 meters on the peak, which stands at 8,167 meters. They were confirmed dead on October 8. The bodies were located at an altitude of 6,900m by a rescue helicopter. The 14-member team headed for Dhaulagiri to make an alpine style climbing attempt through I AM Trekking & Expedition.

Earlier, Valerii Shamalo, a member of the team who had abandoned the summit attempt, was rescued from Camp I and brought to Kathmandu.

Denis Aleksenko from Russia as well as Artsiom Tsentsevitski from Belarus had scaled Dhaulagiri on October 5 in an alpine style while six other climbers abandoned their climbing bid earlier.