Kathmandu — A Japanese climber who lost all but one finger to frostbite on Everest has died on his eighth attempt to reach the summit, officials said on Monday. Nobukazu Kuriki had fallen ill and was descending when his team lost contact with him. The 36-year-old is the third climber in May to perish on the world’s highest peak. "Kuriki stopped responding to radio communication and we couldn’t see his headlamp when we looked up from the bottom in the dark," his team posted on Facebook. "[The] team near Camp 2 climbed up his route to search for him and discovered Kuriki who passed away due to low body temperature." Late on Sunday Kuriki had reached 7,400m, pushing beyond three of the four camps that mark the route to the 8,848m summit. "Now I feel the pain and difficulty of this mountain. I appreciate it and I am climbing," he wrote on Facebook. The conquest of Everest always eluded the experienced mountaineer, who had achieved solo ascents of two other 8,000m peaks without the use o...
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