The bodies of missing Bengal climbers Paresh Nath and Subhas Paul were found a kilometre apart on the upper reaches of Everest on Friday but the weather is again making it difficult for the Sherpas to bring them down.
The six-member search team has not been able to trace another Bengal climber, Goutam Ghosh, who is also missing on Everest.
"Nath's body was found at an altitude of around 8,000m, near the South Col. But it was so windy that the Sherpas could not bring him down," said Wangchu Sherpa, managing director of Trekking Camp Nepal, a sister agency of Loben Expeditions, which had organised the trio's climb.
Paul's body was found between Camp III (7,200m) and Camp IV (7,950m) on Friday and had been brought down to Camp II (6,400m), Wangchu Sherpa added.
Ghosh's body is believed to be at an altitude higher than where Nath was found. "The Sherpas could not go up to that height because of the bad weather," said Dipankar Ghosh, who is tracking the search operation on behalf of the Bengal government. Contact with the three climbers was lost last Saturday.
Several mountaineers told Metro that moving in the snow at an altitude of around 8,000m, even with steady oxygen supply, is very difficult and becomes doubly so when there is a load to carry. Bad weather makes the task almost impossible.
Three Sherpas of the six-member team that flew to Camp II (6,400m) had climbed up to find the bodies of Nath and Ghosh. They found Nath and would try again on Saturday to bring him down.
The other group of Sherpas found Paul's body.
Saturday is the last day of the search operation because the Khumbu Icefall, through which all Everest routes from the Nepal side pass, is set to be closed for the season on Sunday.
The search operation has repeatedly been hit by bad weather. It was so bad that a chopper was not able to fly the Sherpas to the base camp (5,335m). When the weather improved last Wednesday, the chopper could go up to base camp but no higher. The search finally started on Thursday morning but had to be aborted shortly after because of bad weather. The search resumed at night.
On Friday, the body of Rajib Bhattacharyya, who died on May 19 while descending Dhaulagiri (8,167m), was brought to Kathmandu by helicopter. A post-mortem is likely to be conducted at a Kathmandu government hospital on Saturday.