More than 200 tourists stranded by a snowstorm over the weekend near the east side of Mount Everest in Tibet have been evacuated, Reuters reports.
The evacuation began yesterday and is expected to be completed by today, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Earlier, about 350 other tourists stranded by the blizzard in the remote Karma Valley in Tibet were directed to safety by local rescue teams.
"We probably walked about 18 or 19 kilometers, mostly through heavy snow," said Eric Wen, 41. "Fortunately, some people ahead of us were paving paths, leaving footprints that we could follow - that made things a little easier. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for us to get out on our own.”
Wen and the other tourists in his expedition team have since reached Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, with the help of local authorities.
In recent days, Chinese tourists have flocked to the country’s rugged interior, taking advantage of the eight-day National Day holiday that began on October 1.
In western China, hundreds of tourists, including those in the Karma Valley who were hoping to see the Kangshung East Face of Everest, were surprised by the sudden heavy snowfall.
The snowfall in the Karma Valley, located at an average altitude of 4,200 meters, began on Friday evening and continued until Saturday.
The valley, first explored by Western travelers a century ago, is a relatively untouched part of the Everest region. In contrast to the dry north face of the peak, it is characterized by lush vegetation and untouched alpine forests fed by meltwater from the Kangshung Glacier at the foot of the world's highest mountain.
In the Qilian Mountains, on the border between the western provinces of Qinghai and Gansu, at least one tourist died after getting stuck in a ravine during snowstorms, and 137 others were evacuated. In Xinjiang, authorities suspended tourism activities in Kanas, a lake district in the Altai Mountains, after roads became dangerously icy and covered with snow.