Mount Everest is in the Himalayas (Image: Getty)
Climbing the world’s tallest mountain above sea level is getting safer – yet it still claims the life of 1% of those brave enough to try to conquer it, UK scientists have discovered. Mountaineer Paul Firth and the University of Lancashire’s Dr Jeremy Windsor have built upon research into high-altitude deaths on Mount Everest ever since the first recorded summit attempt by George Mallory in 1921.
New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first to finally reach the 8,848m (29,031ft) summit on May 29th 1953. Over 426 people have died on Everest expeditions and over 200 bodies remain on the mountain. But now Firth, an associate professor of anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and colleagues claim deaths have halved – thanks to advances in weather tech, oxygen delivery, logistics and nutrition.
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Stamp celebrates Sir Edmund Hillary’s achievement (Image: Getty)
Dr Jeremy Windsor, senior lecturer in Mountain Medicine at the University of Lancashire, added: “For more than a century, mountaineers have died on Everest.
“Using witness accounts and medical reports we have examined more than 100 deaths on the mountain. Our results show that the mortality rate has fallen by half compared to previous years.
“This change can be attributed to multiple factors including improvements in weather forecasting, clothing and communication. These results have implications for all of us who enjoy the mountains!”
Published in The Journal of Physiology it shows that death rates during expeditions fell by half between the initial period of 1921 to 2006 and more recent years, 2007 to 2024, with the mortality rate falling from 1.4 percent to 0.7 percent.
Firth said: “Contrary to perceptions and media reports, things are actually safer now – but it’s still very dangerous.”
Firth wanted to better understand what happens to the human body at high elevations to guide efforts to make climbing safer.
That initial research, published in 2009, found that cerebral edema likely played a role in many more high-altitude deaths than was previously understood.
The condition develops in regions of low oxygen like Everest’s “death zone” above 26,200 feet, or five miles up.
Fluid leaks into the brain, causing headaches, extreme fatigue, coordination problems, and impaired judgment, any one of which presents a hazard in conditions where a single mistake can cost your life.
The research credited a number of recent changes with lowering the death rate. Most attempts today occur along known, standard routes, which feature fixed ropes.
In addition, weather forecasting has improved greatly, as have communication systems, allowing much freer flow of information about what awaits higher up on the mountain.
Advances in logistics, clothing, nutrition, hydration, and oxygen delivery systems have each lowered the risk to climbers from cold, hunger, thirst, and thin air.
Firth said: “Fewer people are getting isolated, left behind, and dying alone. We speculate that teamwork has improved and that everything being roped the whole way has helped markedly, but there are many other things that could have contributed which we weren’t able to measure.”
Commemorative plaque in honor of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine (Image: Getty)
Climbing Everest has always been a life-threatening endeavour. Two died on the first expedition in 1921, though their deaths were en route to the mountain. An avalanche claimed the lives of seven porters on the second expedition in 1922.
Four died in the third attempt, in 1924, including George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, who disappeared on the first known attempt to reach the summit and whose remains were only found in recent decades.
Mallory’s body was found in 1999 by the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition at 26,760 feet (8,160 metres), along with personal effects.
The discovery provided clues, but no definitive proof about whether they reached the summit. When asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb Everest, Mallory replied: “Because it’s there.”
According to the current work, partly funded by the MGH Anaesthesia Department, just over half of the deaths occurred in the “death zone” where the air holds just a third of the oxygen at sea level.
Firth said that most deaths now occur on good-weather days due to lack of oxygen and the extreme cold at that altitude. Improved forecasting has reduced losses directly related to bad weather.
The new work highlights the increased popularity of climbing in recent decades, with 1,921 summits through the 85 years up to 2006, and 9,823 summits in the 18 years since.
Though the mortality rate has fallen, climbers still die almost yearly on the mountain, and many years have seen multiple lives lost. One such year was 2004, when seven people died on Everest.
The study highlighted disparities between deaths of climbers and the native sherpas who provide professional porter and guide services.
Three-quarters of deaths among climbers occur high on the mountain, on “summit day” — the last push to the top — or on the way down.
The vast majority of sherpa deaths, by contrast, happen lower on the mountain, as they prepare the route for their clients.
