Bad weather has grounded helicopters as search teams try to reach a staging camp near Himlung Himal, the latest in a run of deadly extreme weather events across Asia.
Ten Nepalese climbers are missing after an avalanche struck a base camp in the Himalayas on Sunday morning, and rescuers have so far been unable to reach the site because of bad weather.
The men were not tourists. They were local guides sent ahead of a foreign expedition to set up camp, work out the route and fix ropes on the mountain \u2014 the unseen labour that makes commercial climbing in Nepal possible.
Where it happened
The group was at a staging point close to Himlung Himal, a 7,126-metre (23,380ft) peak in Nepal's Manang district, near the border with Tibet. Weather forecasts had shown heavy snowfall around the mountain in the days before the avalanche.
Bibhuti Chand Thakur of Himalaya Holidays Trekking, one of the companies organising the climb, told the news agency AFP that eight members of its own team and two from another company had been reported missing.
Helicopters and ground rescue teams have not been able to get to the location, according to reporting by MyJoyOnline. Snow and rain have continued across Nepal's mountain districts.
A bad season on the mountains
The conditions have already disrupted the climbing season. Earlier in the week, climbers had to abandon Mount Manaslu, the eighth highest peak in the world, as the risk of avalanches rose.
Climbing tourism is a major earner for Nepal, and Nepalese guides carry most of the physical risk in the industry. Less than two months ago, six Nepali climbers died on Broad Peak in Pakistan, among them the well-known British-Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja.
The region is also still counting the cost of a disaster in August, when a glacier collapsed in the Himalayas and sent water and debris down the Trishuli River valley, wiping out settlements. More than 1,400 deaths have been confirmed and over 6,000 people remain missing. Recovery work on the Nepal-Tibet border is continuing.
Part of a wider pattern in Asia
The avalanche comes during a week of severe weather across the continent.
Officials in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh say extreme weather there has killed more than 50 people. In Thailand, a flood emergency has been declared across Bangkok after heavy rain from Thursday, with residents told to stay indoors or move to upper floors.
In Japan, Typhoon Dujuan hit Tokyo and set off landslides in nearby prefectures that killed four people. It is one of several Pacific storms strengthened by what meteorologists have described as a "super El Ni\u00f1o" \u2014 a band of unusually warm sea water that helps powerful storms form.
Search efforts near Himlung Himal are expected to resume once the weather allows aircraft to fly.
