The bodies of five Russian climbers who went missing on the night of October 6 during their ascent of Dhaulagiri I were recovered with the help of a helicopter on Wednesday. The bodies, which were retrieved using ropes by an Altitude Air chopper, have been sent to Kathmandu.

The high-altitude rescue mission, led by Captain Bibek Khadka, employed a long-line technique to recover the bodies and transported them to the base camp before flying them to Kathmandu on Wednesday morning, Altitude Air said.

The deceased climbers were identified as Alexander Dusheyko, Oleg Kruglov, Vladimir Chistikov, Mikhail Nosenko, and Dmitry Shpilevoi, as per the Department of Tourism. The climbers had last been in contact on October 6 at 11 pm, after reaching an altitude of 8,000 metres. The peak is 8,167 metres high. Despite several rescue attempts by helicopter, the bodies could not be rescued earlier due to adverse weather conditions.

According to Captain Khadka, the bodies were recovered from an altitude of 7,600 metres, with each one being carefully lowered to base camp. “I first dropped two Sherpas at the site,” Captain Khadka said. “And then brought the bodies down one by one to the base camp.”