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- Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world. Its summit is 29,029 feet above sea level.
- At least 11 people have died on Everest in the last week. Some collapsed of exhaustion in the "death zone" — the area more than 26,000 feet up, in which the body cannot get enough oxygen.
- In total, 306 people have died trying to summit Everest. But your chances of surviving that climb are higher than they would be on most other Himalayan peaks taller than 26,000 feet.
- Annapurna I and K2, the second highest mountain in the world, are the most dangerous. The two mountains have a 32% and 29% fatality rate, according to NASA.
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If climbers want to summit Mount Everest, they have to brave the "death zone" — the area above 8,000 meters (26,247 feet) in altitude, where there is so little oxygen that the body starts to die, minute by minute and cell by cell.
Last week, at least 11 people died on Everest, which is the tallest peak in the world at 29,029 feet (8,848 meters or 5.5 miles) above sea level. Some reportedly collapsed from exhaustion after waiting in line for hours to ascend to the summit on narrow parts of the route.
But Everest isn’t the only Himalayan peak on which climbers face the death zone. In fact, nine other mountains are deadlier than Everest.
According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, Annapurna I — the 10th highest mountain in the world — is the most dangerous to climb, with a fatality rate of 32% as of 2012. K2, second-highest peak in the world, is almost as dangerous, with a fatality rate of 29%. Everest, by contrast, has a 4% fatality rate.
Granted, Mount Everest has seen many tragedies since 2012. In 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, sending an avalanche careening into Everest’s Base Camp. More than 20 people were killed.
Here are the 10 deadliest mountains in the Himalayas — in order from most to least deadly — according to NASA.
Annapurna I, the 10th highest mountain in the world, has a fatality rate of 32%.
Frank Bienewald/LightRocket/Getty
According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, only 191 people had successfully climbed Annapurna as of 2012, far less than any other 8,000-meter mountains.
The first people to climb Annapurna I were French climbers Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal in 1950. Though they reached the summit on their first try, extreme frostbite and gangrene set in on their way down the mountain. A doctor had to amputate all of Herzog and Lachenal’s toes, as well as all of Herzog’s fingers.
K2, or Mount Goodwin-Austin, is just 778 feet shorter than Everest. Mountaineer George Bell once said "K2 is a savage mountain that tries to kill you."
Patrick Poendl/Business Insider
Only 264 people reached the top of K2 between 1906 and 2008, and 24 of them died before they got back down, according to 8000ers.com, an online database that tracks climbing statistics for all Himalayan peaks higher than 8,000 meters.
According to NASA, K2 has a fatality rate of 29%.
The south side of Nanga Parbat, a peak whose name means "naked mountain," is generally snow-free.
Zulfikar Ali/AFP/Getty
According to NASA, as of March 2012, Nanga Parbat had a fatality rate of about 20%.
In July 1953, Austrian climber Hermann Buhl became the first to reach the summit. He did so alone, without oxygen, food, a tent or sleeping bag. Before him, 31 people had died attempting that feat.
But the mountain is better known for how fast it’s growing.
"There is no other mountain in the world that is rising as fast as Nanga Parbat," Mike Searle, a University of Oxford geologist, told NASA.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- The world’s tallest mountains like Mount Everest and K2 have a ‘death zone’ — here’s a first-hand account of what it’s like
- Dead bodies litter Mount Everest because it’s so dangerous and expensive to get them down
- What the top of Mount Everest is really like, according to the woman who’s been there a record-breaking 9 times
Source: Business Insider – awoodward@businessinsider.com (Aylin Woodward)