Dutch, Australian climbers die while descending Mount Everest

A Dutch man and an Australian woman has died of altitude sickness while descending from the summit of Mount Everest.

A Dutch man and an Australian woman died apparently of altitude sickness while descending from the summit of Mount Everest.

The death of Maria Strydom, 34, was confirmed by Monash University in Melbourne, where she worked as a lecturer.

Pasang Phurba Sherpa, a board director at Seven Summit Treks agency in Kathmandu, said Strydom was on her way down from Camp 4 to Camp 3 when she became sick.

In an interview with ABC, Sherpa said, "After reaching the summit yesterday she said she was feeling very weak and suffering from a loss of energy ... signs of altitude sickness."

This fatality was the second on Everest this year and could hit mountaineering in Nepal, where a massive quake had killed at least 18 people at Everest Base Camp last year.

Dutch climber Eric Ary Arnold also died after reaching the summit of 8,850-metre (29,035 feet) Everest. The 35-year-old Arnold had enough bottled oxygen with him but he complained of getting weak and died Friday night near South Col before he was able to get to a lower altitude.

Both Strydom and Arnold were a part of the same trekking group.

Apart from these two deaths, a 45-year-old woman from Norway, Siv Harstad, suffered snow blindness and was helped down from the summit on Saturday by two Sherpa guides according to NTB, a Norwegian news agency.

This year more than 330 climbers have reached the summit from Nepal since May 11, and several more have reached from the northern routes in Tibet.

Thousands of people have summited Mount Everest after it was first conquered by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay on May 29, 1953. But more than 250 people have died in the attempt.

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