Climbers returning from Mount Everest and other Himalayan peaks are struggling to find a return flight back home after Nepal banned most air travel to contain a surge in COVID-19 cases, mountaineering operators and hikers said on Wednesday. Most regular international flights are closed through June as a deadly second wave of the coronavirus hit the Himalayan nation tucked between China and India. Nepal issued 742 permits — 408 of those to climbers aspiring to make it to the top of the world's highest peak, Mount Everest — in the April-May climbing season. And hundreds of climbers are now returning from the mountains before the onset of annual monsoon rains. Mount Everest and other peaks of the Himalayan range are seen through an aircraft window during a mountain flight from Kathmandu, Nepal, on Jan. 15, 2020.

Source: CBC News June 02, 2021 19:18 UTC