Search and rescue team unable to find missing Indian-origin climber at Mount Everest summit

PTI, May 28, 2023, 10:48 AM IST

A search and rescue team was unable to locate a missing Indian-origin climber who reached the Mount Everest summit on May 19, despite its best efforts, his wife said in an Instagram post on Saturday.

Interspersing her message between pictures of her husband Shrinivas Sainis Dattatraya on various mountain peaks, Sushma Soma, a 36-year-old musician, said, “He was 39, and in his glorious and rich life, he lived fearlessly and to the fullest. He explored the depth of the sea and scaled the greatest heights of the Earth.”

“And now, Shri is in the mountains, where he felt most at home,” The Straits Times quoted Soma from the post.

Shrinivas scaled the Mount Everest on May 19 but told his wife he had come down with high-altitude cerebral oedema and was unlikely to make it down the mountain.

Groups of three Sherpas each had been searching for the Singaporean, Nepal Guide Treks and Expedition – one of the companies that co-organised Shrinivas’ expedition – had told The Straits Times earlier.

The climber had left Singapore on April 1 with the aim of summiting the Mount Everest and then Mount Lhotse in a single expedition. He would have been one of the few in South-east Asia and the first Singaporean-Indian to do so, according to Soma.

“Only few can dare to dream the way he did,” she said, adding that her husband was “judicious, meticulous and sharp”.

“Having successively scaled a higher mountain every year, including all 8,163m of Manaslu, Shri understood the gravity of such dreams.”

Manaslu, located in the Nepalese Himalayas, is the eighth-highest mountain in the world.

She said, “I witnessed his focus, rigour and discipline in training to achieve this feat while also managing his work commitments as an executive director.”

Shrinivas worked for real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).

In her message, Soma thanked Shrinivas’ guide, Dendi Sherpa, for “being his trusted companion” and “always putting Shri first, even before himself” during their climbs. Dendi had tried to save Shrinivas, and was hospitalised with frostbite to his fingers, according to an earlier news report by the Singapore broadsheet.

She also thanked the climbing community, the Sherpas from Nepal-based adventure travel operator Seven Summit Treks and JLL for helping in the search for her husband. Seven Summit was the other co-organiser of Shrinivas’ Everest ascent.

In addition, she thanked family and friends, as well as Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Indian High Commission of Singapore, as well as the Nepalese and Chinese governments for their support.

In a statement on Saturday, MFA expressed its condolences to Shrinivas’ family.

Its spokesman said, “Since the onset, the Singapore High Commission in New Delhi has been in close contact with the family and will continue to extend consular assistance and support to the family during this difficult time.”

“The ministry would like to express its appreciation to all authorities for their support in the search and rescue efforts.”