Mt Annapurna climber from Bengal returns to base camp

Kolkata: The family members of Piyali Basak and the mountaineering fraternity in Bengal, who spent the day watching the developments at Mount Annapurna, heaved a sigh of relief to know that she had returned to base camp.
While Baljeet Kaur, another mountaineer from Solan district of Himachal Pradesh, who had been stuck at an altitude of 24,193ft, was rescued by a helicopter from the mountain, there is no news of the climber Anurag Maloo from Rajasthan till late evening.

“We have the confirmation of Basak’s return to the base camp. Given the developments in the past few days and the death of the Irish climber, Noel Hanna, at the camp IV, we were worried. Hanna had scaled Mount Everest 10 times in the past and nobody imagined that he would meet such a fate,” said Pasang Tenje Sherpa, chairman of Pioneer Adventure an agency that is assisting Basak in her climb.
Basak had reached the summit around 8.25am on Monday along with six other climbers and seven sherpas. One of the climbers, who lost his glasses, suffered snow blindness. By the evening, they came down to camp III.
Even climbing down from Mount Annapurna is very tricky as the ridge-like route and avalanche can create havoc for climbers, said some mountaineers in Kolkata. The fragile glacier surface after camp II has often posed challenge for the climbers. Debashis Biswas, who had scaled Mount Annapurna in 2012, was also watching the development throughout the day. “The weather condition was favourable since Sunday and there had been more than 25 summits in the past three days. On Tuesday, we first had the news of Kaur being rescued and then Basak’s return to the base camp. But we are yet to get any news of Anurag,” he said.
Basak’s sister Tamali said, “I will be able to talk to her once she is back to Pokhara. We were worried, especially after the news of missing climbers.”