Nepal earthquake stirs debate on overcrowding and commercialisation of Everest
(Mount Everest may be over…) There's no mistaking the twinge of pain in his voice as Jamling Tenzing Norgay speaks on the phone from Kathmandu. Mention the series of avalanches that were set off on the world's tallest mountain, Mount Everest, and on some of the peaks around by the deadly earthquake last Saturday, killing at least 19 climbers of different nationalities, and he remains silent for a few seconds. As a Sherpa mountaineer and mountain guide, Norgay's sense of tragedy is palpable — what makes it even deeper is the family legacy; his father Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was the first summiteer of Mount Everest (along with Edmund Hillary) in 1953. "We respect Mount Everest as a mother and a goddess — both in Hindu & Buddhist cultures. An earthquake is a natural calamity but there's still a deep feeling of sadness," says Norgay, who rushed to Kathmandu from Darjeeling, where he lives, to search for many of his family members ...