An Indian-origin Singaporean climber has gone missing while returning from the summit of Mount Everest, his family has said and called for urgent attention to his situation.
Shrinivas Sainis Dattatraya, 39, went missing on Friday from camp IV situated at an altitude of 8,400 metres while returning from the Summit, said Mingma Sherpa, chairperson of the Seven Summit Trek, which organised the expedition. Search operations were being carried out with the help of Sherpa guides, but there was no information regarding his whereabouts till Sunday afternoon, Expedition Manager Chhang Dawa Sherpa told PTI.
“We have also asked other climbers who have returned from the Summit but there was no clue about him,” he said, adding that the search is going on to locate the missing climber.
According to a petition on the website change.org, Shrinivas set out from Singapore to Nepal last month to climb the world’s highest peak. His cousin Divya Bharath wrote in the petition that on the way down, Shrinivas seemed to have suffered frostbite and altitude sickness. This probably might have resulted in Shrinivas getting separated from the rest of his group, and “fell at around 8,000 metres, likely onto the Tibetan side of the mountain”.
A Singaporean news channel on Saturday cited Bharath as saying that a team of sherpas began search operations for Shrinivas on Saturday morning. He was reportedly last in contact with base camp officials at around 8,500 metres.
In the petition, Bharath wrote that the family has reached out to the governments concerned. “This matter needs to be brought to their attention on an urgent basis. We need a special rescue team that is trained to operate in such risky terrain as well as to ensure that this whole rescue operation is not hindered by diplomatic paperwork,” Channel News Asia quoted Bharath as saying.
She added that Shrinivas’ family was devastated but did not want to lose hope.
Shrinivas, 39, who is an executive director at real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle, left for Mount Everest on April 1. He was due to return home on June 4. According to a report by The Straits Times newspaper, Shrinivas last sent a text message to his wife on Friday saying that he has reached the summit of Everest but was not likely to make it back down.
