Mount Everest: Nepal bans blind people, double amputees and solo climbers from scaling world's highest peak

Disability campaigners called the move 'discriminatory'

Officials said the move would make climbing the famed summit safer and would decrease deaths (Reuters)

Nepal has banned double amputees, blind people and solo climbers from scaling Mount Everest.

The controversial new safety regulations for the world's highest peak have been introduced in a bid to reduce accidents.

Foreign climbers must also now be accompanied by a guide under the new rules.

Officials said the move would make climbing the famed summit safer and would decrease deaths. But disability campaigners have said the rules amount to discrimination.

Aspiring Everest climber Hari Budha Magar, who lost both his legs during a tour in Afghanistan, called the move “discriminatory” and an “injustice” on Facebook. “I will be climbing Mount Everest whatever the cabinet decides. Nothing is impossible,” he said.

So far, six people have died trying to climb the mountain this season.

More than 5,000 climbers have scaled Mount Everest since it was first climbed by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, and nearly 300 have died trying.

Exhaustion, exposure, frostbite, falls and altitude sickness are major causes of death on Everest. But the biggest killer in recent years has been avalanches.

Eighteen people were killed in 2015 when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake triggered avalanches that smashed into the base camp.

A year earlier, 16 sherpas hauling gear to higher camps for climbers were killed when they were hit by an avalanche while crossing the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp.

Additional reporting by agencies