Four Deaths on Mount Everest in Four Days
KINKADE: You're watching CNN. And this is Connect the World with me, Lynda Kinkade. Welcome back. Well, rescuers are searching for two Indian climbers missing on Mount Everest. It comes after a deadly weekend on the world's highest peak. Sumnima Udas has this story.</s>SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's the ultimate achievement, scaling the top of the world, Mount Everest, at 8,848 meters, almost 30,000 feet. But the deaths of four climbers in as many days has shaken the mountaineering community. Phurba Sherpa fell to his death while fixing the routes just a few meters from the summit. Dutch climber Eric Arnold, a triathlete, died from a suspected heart attack. He was on his way down after a successful summit. Australia national Maria Strydom died from altitude sickness at base camp four, the final stop before the summit. And on Sunday, Indian climber Subah Paul also died. Danger is inherent here. More than 250 mountaineers have died since Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent in 1953. But still every year hundreds are drawn to it, willing to take the risk. The air is so thin, the oxygen level is a third of what's available at sea level. The wind is vicious, the weather erratic and the terrain deadly. Kenton Cool is a guide who has climbed Everest 12 times.</s>KENTON COOL, MOUNTAIN CLIMBER: Winds are very brutal on Everest. And they can make what would be a relatively amenable summit day into something quite the opposite.</s>UDAS: Climbing had been halted for the past years after a deadly avalanche in 2014 killed that 16 Sherpas and a devastating earthquake that struck Nepal in 2015. A lot was riding on this year's climbing season. The Nepali government hoping to revive tourism in a country still reeling from the earthquake. Authorities say some 400 climbers summited Everest this year. But this is a tragic end to yet another climbing season.</s>COOL: It's not considerably dangerous, it is very, very dangerous. And you do need the depth of experience, you do need the understanding and the skill set to be able to operate and even survive at such altitudes.</s>UDAS: A reminder of just how dangerous scaling the highest mountain in the world can be. Sumnima Udas, CNN.</s>KINKADE: So, why are people still attempting to climb the world's highest mountains despite those very serious risks? Well, let's ask a man who is no stranger to the peak, and one you just saw there in that report. Kenton Cool has scaled Everest 12 times and he joins us now from London. Great to have you with us. Firstly, why wasn't one trip enough?</s>COOL: For me, I fell in love with the mountain straight away. I suppose I have an extra element to why I go to Everest every year, I'm a professional mountain guide and that's one of the ways that I earn my living. i fulfill other people's dreams. But more than that, the mountain is a beautiful mountain. The people of Nepal and of course on the north side the Tibetan people, they're wonderful people. It's a great adventure. And certainly for myself it's a combination of work but also the privilege and the prestige, I suppose, of climbing Mount Everest.</s>KINKADE: So you know these summits better than most people. You know the dangers. As you heard in the report, as you well know, four climbers have died in as many days, two are missing. why have there been so many deaths of late?</s>COOL: Well, unfortunately deaths do go hand in hand with every Everest season. We had a particularly good start to the season. There was multiple summits, many days where people ascended up and down the mountain very happily, very safely. And it did look for a while that Everest would have a season without any fatalities. Then unfortunately the first fatality, which hasn't been mentioned was a climber or a Sherpa climbing on a neighboring peak, Lhotse, which is right next door to Everest. He unfortunately fell while trying to lay a rope, part of the fixing team to allow climbers to climb Lhotse. He was the first fatality of the season in the middle of last week. And then since then, there's been an unfortunately not even a trickle, but an avalanche of deaths. As the reporter said, four deaths in as many days, which is a tragic end to the season. But these aren't unusual figures for climbing Everest. It may seem particularly bad, but generally every season with Everest with the last two season being put aside, there's normally three or four deaths on everest. It's a dangerous thing to undertake and people must realize that. You are climbing pretty much as high as a human being can survive on this planet.</s>KINKADE: What sort of concerns do people talk to you about when they take on the mountain and they take you as their guide?</s>COOL: Well, obviously there's all sorts of concerns, not just from the individual but from the individual's family as well. One of the questions a family will often ask is why? Why do you want to go to the mountain? We know it's a dangerous place so why do you want to risk your life in what is essentially a selfish act? Climbing doesn't give us very much. Getting to the summit of Everest is quite a self-congratulatory thing to do in itself. And that's one of the strange oddities about mountaineering, there's very little gain from doing it other than self-satisfaction. So, when I sit down with a potential client, I talk through the whole thing. They need to understand that there is an inherent danger to climbing up to 8,000 meters and beyond. It doesn't matter how good you are, how fit you are. The Dutch climber was incredibly fit, a very healthy triathlete and it succumbed it sounds like a heart attack at just down from the summit. Altitude is a very leveling thing. You can be incredibly fit and it will still pretty much lay you on your back and unfortunately potentially kill you.</s>KINKADE: OK, Kenton Cool, and on that sad note we'll have to leave it there. But thank you for joining us.</s>COOL: My pleasure.</s>KINKADE: I'm Lynda Kinkade and that was Connect the World. Thanks for watching. END