Travel advisory - Snowstorms in Annapurna National Park

The latest news from Reuters on the rescue effort following the Annapurna disaster.

Thanks to Scoodly for ongoing input on this story.

If anyone has more news on the rescue effort, please post on this thread.

Thank you,
Joe

Update - TAAN has published photos from the rescue mission in the Annapurna region here - follow @Taan_News on Twitter for more updates.

Concerned relatives have created a Facebook page to share news and information here.

More information Annapurna rescue from the British Mountaineering Council.

I wonder if this tragedy was avoidable?

But wouldn`t that take some sense of responibility, integrity and planning by Nepali authorities?

See link what TIMS and other tourist revenues are spend on by the Nepal Tourism Board: booze, luxury travel, bouncers. Monies were syphoned off to private accounts of the acting CEO.

http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=84909

(A more detailed article was taken off the net yesterday.)

I find it irresponsible to label this catastrophe a "freak incident" or an "act of God" (trekking agency owner)? This thinking will only ensure that the current system stays in place and no steps will be taken.

Why did all other countries affected by cyclone Hudhud had warnings in place but Nepal authorities did absolutely nothing about it?

I did not know about this scandal concerning TIMS funds but, frankly, it does not surprise me at all. During my trek I also had an impression that the money spent on TIMS is barely reflected in any functioning trekkers managment system. Registration at checkpoints was rather lax, there was no requirement for lodge owners to register their guests (or at least to maintain a book for voluntary registration), not even mentioning more sophisticated ideas like a system for rescue insurance.

Maybe after this tragedy somebody in the Nepali authorities and/or TAAN will realise that a massive rescue action like the ongoing one actually costs much more than a simple warning system enabling timely information on the ground before extreme weather hits. A lot of potential trekkers will also be probably discouraged by news of what has just happened, so some effort to improve safety would minimize actual losses by trekking agencies, lodge owners etc.
I know it's a bit idealistic and in reality thinking on short-term gain will prevail, so we should probably expect only some more lobbying for prohibition of independent trekking now.

Only form of weather prediction that Nepal has is some satellite images form other countries and based on that what kind of prediction can be done? There are still no weather monitoring equipments at these remote locations and there was no way of predicting that this would happen. All warning that weather forecaster gave was that there will be rain for couple of days and there might be some flood. That's the level of weather forecast here in Nepal.

The only thing that could have prevented this massive loss of lives was with better forecast and that didn't happen.

Only form of weather prediction that Nepal has is some satellite images form other countries and based on that what kind of prediction can be done?

Actually there is no need for establishing a separate weather prediction system for Nepal, as that would be costly and there are several international forecasters that do the job quite well anyway (like http://www.mountain-forecast.com/ and several others).
A much cheaper solution would be better - a small office with 2-3 person working in shifts in Kathmandu or Pokhara that would monitor the weather forecasts on international websites 24 hrs per day. They would need a system for fast transmission of warnings to Manang and to a few places higher up - Thorung Phedi, Thorung High Camp, maybe also Khangsar for the Tilicho Lake trail. In those places somebody (lodge owner or TAAN staff present on the spot) would have the task to put a big yellow or red sign on the trail, saying "Warning: bad weather forecast for [exact time]" or "Warning: extreme weather forecast for tomorrow. Trail closed."
Correct me if I am wrong but I think that such system would greatly reduce the risk of trekkers being caught in extreme weather like this week.

rdccomments & mitzimeow, thanks for your feedback re: my query (my post #4 above). I've been very lucky over the years and have never been caught out with much more than 10-20cm of new snow, so it's nice to get some other's perspectives

meczko (re: post #25/27) - I fully agree with you - there are many reasonable ways such a warning system could be put in place, and it would require a tiny fraction of the funds they currently collect for fees/permits. You wouldn't even need a 24-hr system, the bulk of the value would come from an early morning alert - say around 5am, someone checks several reliable weather sources, calls/radios the information to several key villages, and signs are put up for the day.

Although there would be that small cost in setting up and running such a system, in the long run that cost would be easily made up in reduced rescue expenses as well as increased revenue (more trekkers are likely to come if they are more confident that the govt takes trail safety seriously). But as you point out, no one there seems interested in thinking long term. The only real impact this will have is yet another call to ban FITs, even though it sounds like most of those affected were actually guided...

Has anyone heard from Marcus Rossner, late 40's, British, he may well have been in the area at the time of this.

Presuming he's safe, how far would he have to go to get access to Internet?