May 24 (UPI) -- Four mountaineers were found dead within their tent at Mount Everest's highest camp, expedition officials said, bringing this year's death toll on the mountain to 10.
Mingma Sherpa, managing director of the expedition company Seven Summit Treks, said Sherpa climbers seeking the remains of Slovakian mountaineer Vladimir Strba, who died Sunday on the 29,029-foot tall mountain, found the bodies of four unidentified climbers, the Himalayan Times reported. Strba, and the four newly discovered climbers, died at Camp IV, the highest-altitude encampment on the mountain at about 26,000 feet. The four were identified by the Sherpas only as two Nepalis and two foreigners.
The area around Camp IV is called "The Death Zone" because of its low level of oxygen. The Sherpa rescuers suggested the four discovered in the tent may have died of suffocation.
One of the four was a woman, the Himalayan Times reported.
The spring climbing season on Mount Everest on the Nepal-China border has already seen the deaths of Strba; an Australian mountaineer, Francesco Marchetti; Ravi Kumar, from India; American Roland Yearwood, who was found dead of altitude sickness; Swiss climber Ueli Steck, who fell in an April 6 accident; and Nepalese mountaineer Min Bahadur Sherchan, who at 85 was attempting to reclaim his title as the oldest person to reach the world's tallest summit.
