American climber killed on Everest identified as physician

Kathmandu, May 21
An American climber, who was killed on Sunday morning while trying to summit Mount Everest, has been identified as a physician at a hospital in the US.

Murari Sharma, Managing Director at Everest Parivar Treks in Kathmandu, said 51-year-old Roland Yearwood, a physician at Georgiana Medical Center, in Alabama state, died near the balcony area at 8,000 metres while trying to make the final push to scale the world's highest peak.

Meanwhile, Georgiana Medical Center on its webpage stated that Yearwood -- who liked to spend his spare time in sailing, diving and flying -- was on a mission to climb the tallest summit on the seven continents, the Himalayan Times reported.

Yearwood, who headed to the Tibetan side to attempt to climb Mt Everest in 2015, was one of the survivors on the mountain when a devastating earthquake struck Nepal in April 25 that year killing nearly 9,000 people.

The Georgiana physician was part of a 15-member expedition handled by Dan Mazur's Summit Climb and locally managed by Everest Parivar Treks.

Yearwood, who married a fellow physician, is survived by two college-going daughters.

This is the third climbing death on Mount Everest this season.

Octogenarian mountaineer Min Bahadur Sherchan died at the base camp on May 6 while famed Swiss climber Ueli Steck was killed in an accident in the Mount Everest region on April 30.