In 2019 this human traffic jam went viral...
Growing crisis on Mt Everest.
Gridlock on top of the mountain.
The death toll this year has been terrible.
It's a crowd that's becoming common and fatal at the top of Mt Everest. Now in 2023,
a record number of climbing permits have been issued in a season that could go down as the
deadliest in history. So why is getting to the top of the world so dangerous?
[Wind howling which intensifies...]
This is the peak of Mt Everest 8,848 metres and this is the Death Zone.
It's the part of the mountain above 8,000 metres and here you can find yourself in serious trouble.
So I've seen my clients getting crazy, you know,
run going out of mind, doing crazy things up on the mountain. And then, yeah, they need to be
evacuated soon as possible, or they might lose their life.
This is Pemba Sherpa. He's a mountain guide and has climbed Mt Everest seven
times including once just a couple weeks ago.
It was quite emotional reaching up to the summit. It’s the roof of the world and we see how the
earth is round, you know the globe, you see the curves you know and then the alpine glow,
of yeah, the first light coming out glowing all around. Yeah, it was amazing yeah.
He says from bottom to top, climbing Mt Everest takes weeks.
So normally, the whole expedition is around 45 to 50 days, so but like it doesn't mean like we
45 days we are up in the mountains. Because like it's a, it's a long process of your body getting
used to the elevation, so we spend quite a time at Basecamp and then slowly move up to camp one, go a
little bit higher acclimatise, and then come back down rest few days. Again, make a second rotation,
go to camp one, sleep night there, get up to camp two sleep another night, go a little bit higher,
get used to and then get a bit down to Basecamp and rest a few days, and that's how it works here.
Our bodies need time to adjust to higher altitudes. Rushing
too quickly up the mountain can be disastrous.
[Cale knocking on door]
Arjun, hello! [laughing]
Oh hey, hello.
Nice to meet you, nice to meet you. Very nice meeting you.
Have a seat, have a seat
Now I wanted to ask, say I got magically transported to the top of Mt
Everest right now, what would happen to my body? What would happen to me?
Oh it's a great question to ask, probably not good thing happening, say...
Dr Arjun Burlakoti is a very enthusiastic senior
lecturer in anatomy and neuroanatomy at the University of South Australia.
...into there [laughs] and then going and move around and then come back and get...
He says a lot of the issues we run into at higher altitudes have to do with oxygen intake.
Anywhere in the body, including brain and the lungs, they all depend on the oxygen that you,
that comes from the atmospheric, that's the thing.
As we climb higher and higher, there's a drop in atmospheric
pressure. So while there's no change in the amount of oxygen in the air,
it becomes a lot more spread out meaning we inhale a lot less with every breath.
Our body is the best you know, let them to sense the environment and fix everything by themselves.
Once our body senses the dip in oxygen it's pretty quick to start making adjustments.
For starters we’ll start to breathe more, trying to get more oxygen into our lungs.
Our brains will also send signals to our heart to start pumping a bit more and get more oxygenated
blood throughout our body. Water loss also increases and we become more dehydrated.
And you feel dizzy.
Yep.
And nauseated.
Yep.
And this is what you call mountain sickness.
Gotcha! While our bodies do get used to some altitudes,
it can never acclimatise to conditions above 8000 metres, the Death Zone. Here,
we're breathing in about one third of the oxygen we'd get at sea level.
It doesn't matter how strong is your physiology? Everyone,
all of us, after that height, they all would feel that type of, you know, some sorts of things.
In the Death Zone, our blood vessels constrict and fluid can leak out into our lungs and brain
and cause swelling. When it leaks into our lungs, it can lead to something called High
Altitude Pulmonary Edema. When it leaks into our brain it's called High Altitude Cerebral Edema,
causing swelling and fluid in our brain tissue and neurons.
So that could be manifested in the form of craziness, or you know hallucination and
dizziness and fainting or things.
The longer we spend at super high altitudes, the more likely we are to contract either of
these potentially fatal conditions, and it's one of the reasons Mt Everest can be deadly.
But climbing it comes with even more risks than that. Avalanches and icefall have led to
some of the highest death tolls on the mountain. This year three sherpas died when an ice tower
collapsed and buried them. While climate change is literally changing the mountain, making it more
unpredictable and shortening both the climbing season and opportunities to reach the summit.
So everyone wants to go up on the finest weather you know, the weather window is very short
you know, and then everyone wants to get on the summit. So that's,
that's one reason why it's crowded.
Then there are the climbers themselves.
Not many real climbers come on Everest. I mean, I'm in the real climbers, you know,
it's, it's more of like high altitude tourist. It would be better if you have more regulation.
After a huge spike in deaths in 2019, the Nepalese government brought in new rules requiring climbers
to have more training and experience. But it's still letting a lot of people do it.
In fact, it issued a record 478 permits this year. The mountain is a massive source
of income for the Nepalese government and provides jobs for thousands of people in the
Himalaya region. Now after a deadly climbing season, some people are calling for change.
So it's like a mother to us, I mean Mother Goddess to us.
It’s because of Everest like, tourism is flourishing, it’s bringing a lot of people
here. It's all the way from Kathmandu, the hotels owners, the travellers and
everything you know. If we had no Everest here, in our region here, yeah it would be different.