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21 May 2012| last updated at 11:43AM

South Korean climber missing on Everest



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SEOUL: A South Korean mountaineer has gone missing after climbing the world’s highest mountain, Seoul’s foreign ministry said today.

 

Song Won-Bin, 44, went missing on Saturday while returning to base camp  with several other climbers after scaling Mount Everest in the Himalayas, a  ministry spokeswoman told AFP.
   
She said a search would begin soon, but did not elaborate further.
   
Yonhap news agency said Song had collapsed due to altitude sickness and  fallen off a cliff. It quoted a diplomat in the South Korean embassy in  Kathmandu.
 
It said the climbers were part of a team of graduates from the same high  school in the central city of Daejeon.
 
The team of about a dozen members flew to Nepal at the end of March to mark  their school’s 50th anniversary by climbing the 8,848-metre peak. 
 
They were due to return home later this month.
   
The disappearance comes after three South Koreans including renowned  climber Park Young-Seok went missing during an attempt to scale Annapurna last  October.
 
More than 3,000 people have climbed Everest, which straddles Nepal and  China, since it was first conquered by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in  1953.
 
Every year hundreds more set out in April to attempt the climb when  conditions are at their best. -- AFP
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