Singaporean climber dies on Nepal’s Mount Manaslu, first foreign casualty of season

A Singaporean climber died on Nepal’s Mount Manaslu, the world’s eighth highest peak, expedition organisers said.Lau Wee Seng, 50, felt unwell as he was descending from Camp II at around 6,000 metres after an acclimatisation rotation, according to The Himalayan Times newspaper.“He passed away this morning; arrangements have been made to airlift his body,” Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions said on Thursday.The mountaineer had arrived in Samagaun on September 7 as part of a team aiming to scale the peak during the autumn climbing season, Nepal-news" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="206119" data-entity-type="organization">Nepal News online portal reported. He was the first foreign fatality of the season.Lau’s family had been notified, Sherpa said. “A helicopter was mobilised to retrieve his body, but it could not land due to bad weather conditions,” Raj Kumar Shrestha, spokesman for the District Police Office in Gorkha, told Xinhua news agency.A hiker takes a water break during a trek in the Manaslu region of Nepal’s Himalayas. Photo: ShutterstockThis season, 480 climbers are attempting to reach the summit of the 8,163-metre (26,800-foot) high mountain in Nepal.This month, 20-year-old Nepali porter Tashi Sherpa was found dead in his tent at the mountain’s base camp. He had reportedly gone to sleep inside a tent housing a generator without telling others.