Tragedy after triumph: 3 from state scale Everest, 1 missing on way down

Time of India

16-05-2025

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Kolkata: What could have been a golden day for Bengal's mountaineers ended in heartbreak on Friday when news reached that one of the three climbers from the state who summitted Mount Everest during the day had gone missing on the way down even as the two others had made it back to camp 4.
Subrata Ghosh probably disappeared between South Summit and Balcony in the Everest 'death zone' while descending to camp 4, the final stop on way to the summit.
A search and recovery operation is likely to start by Sunday but veteran climbers that TOI spoke to were not very hopeful.
On Thursday, 45-year-old Ghosh and 44-year-old Rumpa Das, both Ranaghat residents, had set out for the summit from camp 4 quite late. Ghosh was not feeling well and moved forward slowly.
He reached the summit sometime between 2 pm and 3 pm. By then, Das was already on her way down after reaching the top. Soumen Sarkar from Burdwan reached the summit early on Friday and made it back to camp 4.
"We are yet to get details of what happened to Ghosh. The sherpa who was with him suddenly realised he was not there. The sherpa's condition was also very bad and he came down to camp 4 very late at night. He is still hallucinating.
By Friday evening he was brought down to camp 2," said Bodhraj Bhandari, managing director of Snowy Horizon Treks in Kathmandu.
High altitude symptoms for climbers include cerebral oedema and hallucination, rapid heartbeat and frostbite. Between 2019 and 2024, 12 Indians have died on Everest.
According to mountaineers in Bengal, the final push from camp IV usually starts early in the evening. Debashis Biswas, who reached the Everest summit in 2010, said, "We started at 7.30 pm and reached the summit around 7.30 am the following day.
Everest climbers follow a thumb rule: start the return journey by 10.30 am, even if that means foregoing the summit."
Debraj Datta, who reached the Everest summit in 2016, explained, "The death zone on Mt Everest starts from between 7,500 and 8,000 meters. Normally, a climber carries three oxygen cylinders that can sustain life for 18 hours. The more time one spends there, the more oxygen is consumed. That makes it deadlier," he said.
Ghosh, an English teacher with a govt school in North 24 Parganas, had started off from his home in Krishnanagar with sister Sumitra Debnath. Both reached the Everest base camp, where Sumitra stayed back as the siblings were finding it difficult to manage the costs, sources said. "Sumitra had summited Mt Lobuche with Ghosh. She is coordinating rescue and recovery from the base camp," said Sanjay Moulik, Ghosh's friend.
Ghosh's insurance agency on Friday said they would try to fly him down after he is brought down to camp II. "We heard he is located somewhere near the Summit Ridge at around 8,200 meters. We can try to rescue a climber from a height where we can send a helicopter. If he is alive, we can take a risky mission and try to fly him down from camp II. In case a climber is no more, we can take down the mortal remains only from camp II," said Prateek Gupta, CEO and head of evacuation of ASC 360.
Meanwhile, Das, who reached the Everest summit on her second attempt this time, came down to camp II on Friday. An English teacher with the Cooper's Colony High School, she has participated in 12 mountaineering expeditions but had to forego her Everest summit in 2021 after contracting Covid.
Sarkar, an engineer with the PWD department, is also a seasoned climber. "He is a wonderful climber and very athletic despite starting at a late age. His agency, 8K Expedition, has already confirmed his Everest summit," said summiteer Moloy Mukherjee.