Two Indians die while descending from Everest summit, says official

Two Indian mountaineers, Arun Kumar Tiwari and Sandeep Are, have died while descending from Mount Everest after successfully reaching the summit, despite guides' best efforts to save them.

Two Indian mountaineers who summited Everest have died while descending, an official said on Friday.

The climbers, identified as Arun Kumar Tiwari and Sandeep Are, were exhausted while they were coming down from the peak and could not be saved despite the best efforts of their guides, said Rishi Bhandari, secretary general of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal.

It appears that Are summited on Wednesday and Tiwari on Thursday around 5.30 pm, Bhandari told PTI.

The guides ''worked really hard'' but were not able to save them, he said.

Are died on Thursday and it is not clear when Tiwari passed away.

Further details are awaited.

On Wednesday, three Indians, including Are, were part of 274 climbers who summited the 8,848.86-metre peak. It was a new record for the highest number of ascents ever recorded in a day. The other two were Tulasi Reddi Palpunoori and Ajay Pal Singh Dhaliwal.

The following day, on Thursday, India's Lakshmikanta Mandal also reached the world's highest peak.