In the past we have shared a report from the Utah Avalanche Center (What is the Risk of Riding in Avalanche Terrain?) that stated that Himalayan Climbing is 10 times more likely to kill you than normal alpine mountaineering. However, this is dwarfed by the death rate of Everest sherpas which comes in at a staggering 1 in 100.
Grayson Schaffer, writing for Outsideonline.com looks into whats going on and why the death rate of sherpas is so high.
THE DISPOSABLE MAN: A WESTERN HISTORY OF SHERPAS ON EVEREST
By: GRAYSON SCHAFFER
For more than a century, Western climbers have hired Nepal’s Sherpas to do the most dangerous work on Mount Everest. It’s a lucrative way of life in a poor region, but no service industry in the world so frequently kills and maims its workers for the benefit of paying clients. As Grayson Schaffer reports, the dead are often forgotten, and their families left with nothing but ghosts. Keep reading @ outsideonline.com
Annual Fatality Rates by Profession
(Deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalents)
- Miners (2000-2010): 25
- Commercial Fisherman (2000-2010): 124
- Alaskan Bush Pilots (1990-2009): 287
- U.S. military in Iraq (2003-2007): 335
- Everest Sherpas (2000-2010): 1,332
- Everest Sherpas (2004-2014): 4,053
The reason for the discrepancy is simple. From 2000 to 2010, only seven ethnic Sherpas died on the mountain. Since then, 21 Sherpas have perished, including the 16 who died in the avalanche yesterday.
Number of Sherpas Killed on Everest By Year
- 2014: 17
- 2013: 4
- 2012: 3
- 2011: 0
- 2010: 0
- 2009: 1
- 2008: 0
- 2007: 1
- 2006: 4
- 2005: 0
- 2004: 0
- 2003: 0
- 2002: 0
- 2001: 1
- 2000: 0
This year is not just the mountain’s worst tragedy. It caps the worst three-year period in Everest history.
[source: Outside]