Nepal climbers face ruin after quake, blockade hits Everest industry

Phurba Tashi Sherpa, the most accomplished high-altitude climber in history, holds a bucket and crowbar as he claws through the rubble of his home seven months after Nepal’s earthquake shattered the country. Despite years of guiding wealthy foreign clients up Mount Everest, something he has done 21 times - a joint record - the 44-year-old has been left penniless. Phurba Tashi’s predicament is shared by many Sherpas, whose homes, lodges and restaurants were destroyed in the April disaster and who complain of a slow response from the government despite billions of dollars of Western aid.

Everything I worked for was destroyed in a minute.

Phurba Tashi

The earthquake that killed almost 9,000 people destroyed his eight-bedroom trekking lodge, badly damaged his house and caused a deadly avalanche nine miles away on the world’s tallest peak. The remote villages under Everest, which prospered in recent decades thanks to the booming climbing business, suffered some of the heaviest destruction in Nepal’s deadliest disaster. "It has been two terrible years for Everest: we have had no summits and lots of fatalities,“ said Garrett Madison, who runs Seattle-based Madison Mountaineering.

A lot of people tell me I should go one more time to break the record, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.

Phurba Tashi

Everest Asia-Pacific