Himlung Himal Avalanche: 15 Nepalese Workers Killed as Autumn Season Turns Deadly

Nepal’s difficult 2026 autumn climbing season has suffered another major tragedy after an avalanche struck the base camp of Himlung Himal, killing at least 15 Nepalese mountain workers.

One person remains missing following the avalanche, which hit the camp on 27 September after a period of heavy snowfall and continuous rain.

The victims were not climbers making a summit attempt.

They were the Nepalese guides and support workers who had travelled ahead of foreign expedition members to establish Base Camp and prepare the 7,126-metre mountain for the coming climbing season.

The disaster has become the deadliest incident of Nepal’s current autumn mountaineering season.

Avalanche Buries Himlung Base Camp

Himlung Himal lies in the remote Manang district of central Nepal, close to the Tibetan border.

Although considerably lower than Everest and the 8,000-metre giants, Himlung has become an increasingly popular expedition peak, particularly for climbers wanting experience at extreme altitude.

Teams were preparing to arrive for the autumn season when disaster struck.

According to the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, 16 people were initially reported missing – two climbing guides and 14 kitchen and expedition support staff.

The avalanche did not simply sweep the camp away. Workers were buried inside their tents beneath metres of snow, making the subsequent search exceptionally difficult.

Foreign expedition climbers had not yet arrived at Base Camp when the avalanche hit.

Eleven Escape the Avalanche

Not everyone at the camp was caught in the main avalanche path.

Later reports revealed that 11 people survived because their tents had been positioned away from the area struck most heavily by the slide.

Those directly in its path were buried deeply.

Searchers faced snow reportedly several metres deep and eventually resorted to digging tunnels through the avalanche debris in an attempt to reach the missing workers.

The first rescue teams recovered four bodies.

Three more were subsequently found, before an intensive operation on 1 October recovered another eight.

That brought the confirmed death toll to 15, with one worker still unaccounted for.

Difficult Recovery Operation

The search has involved the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association’s rescue team alongside Himalayan Holidays Nepal, Seven Summit Treks and local mountain guides.

Experienced IFMGA guides Pasang Kaji Sherpa and Bikram Karki have been leading the operation.

Eleven rescuers have been working at the avalanche site despite continuing difficult weather, unstable snow and the danger of further avalanche activity.

An earlier phase of the operation had been suspended because rescuers believed the victims were buried too deeply for conventional digging and the risk to the search teams was becoming too high.

The recovery effort was subsequently resumed following requests from relatives of those missing and the expedition company employing many of the workers.

With additional personnel available, teams began tunnelling underneath the accumulated snow rather than attempting to remove the entire avalanche deposit from above.

By Thursday evening, only one of the original 16 missing workers remained unaccounted for.

The Hidden Workforce Behind Himalayan Expeditions

The Himlung disaster highlights an aspect of Himalayan climbing that receives far less attention than summit photographs and climbing records.

Long before international clients arrive at a mountain, Nepalese workers are already there.

They establish Base Camp, prepare kitchens and sleeping areas, transport equipment, secure ropes and begin turning an isolated Himalayan valley into an operational expedition camp.

It is difficult, physically demanding work carried out in exactly the same unpredictable mountain environment faced by the climbers who follow.

On Himlung, the foreign climbers had not even reached Base Camp before the people preparing it for them were caught by the avalanche.

For the families involved, the distinction between guide, kitchen worker, porter or internationally recognised climber means very little.

All were working in the mountains.

A Brutal Autumn in Nepal

The tragedy comes during an already difficult autumn across the Nepal Himalaya.

On Manaslu, repeated heavy snowfall and avalanches effectively destroyed the main summit season, with four people losing their lives and hundreds of climbers eventually abandoning their expeditions.

Himlung has now produced an even greater loss of life.

Heavy snowfall preceded both disasters, again demonstrating how rapidly autumn conditions can transform commercially organised expeditions into situations where simply remaining on the mountain becomes unacceptable.

Reuters described the Himlung avalanche as the deadliest accident of Nepal’s current autumn climbing season.

The final search for the remaining missing worker is expected to continue only while conditions allow, with rescuers emphasising that the safety of the recovery team must come first.

More Than a Number

Himalayan climbing news is often dominated by the world’s highest mountains, famous climbers and summit records.

The deaths on Himlung are a reminder of the much larger community required to make those expeditions possible.

The people lost on 27 September were doing the work that happens before most climbing stories even begin.

Fifteen families are now mourning relatives who travelled into the Himalayas to prepare a mountain for others.

And as the search continues for the final missing member of the team, Himlung Himal has become another sombre chapter in an exceptionally difficult year for the mountain community.