KATHMANDU: Rescuers on Mount Everest found the body of a 13th Nepalese guide on Saturday as authorities ruled out hope of finding any more survivors from the deadliest accident ever on the world’s highest peak.

Three sherpas remained missing from Friday’s avalanche which struck after a large party of guides left Everest base camp carrying tents, food and ropes to prepare for international clients ahead of the main climbing season. Towards the evening, rescuers suspended the search until Sunday.

“We have suspended the rescue operation for today. It is risky to continue searching the mountain as evening sets in,” tourism ministry official Madhusudan Burlakoti said.

The avalanche smashed into the sherpas early Friday at an altitude of about 5,800 metres (19,000 feet) in an area nicknamed the “popcorn field” due to ice boulders on the route leading into the treacherous Khumbu Icefall.

Dozens of guides were on the move when a huge block of ice broke off from a hanging glacier, before splitting into smaller chunks and barrelling down into the icefall, one of the most dangerous areas on the route to ascend Everest.

The ice “tumbled for several thousand feet, resulting in debris that came further out into the icefall”, according to an account by the International Mountain Guides climbing company, which has a team stationed on the peak.

Veteran climber Alan Arnette, who reached the summit of Everest in 2011, said mountaineers usually tried to go through the icefall “as quickly as possible”.

The hanging glaciers “are by definition unstable, sooner or later they are going to break and fall, making the icefall very dangerous”, Arnette said from his home in Colorado.

“You first hear the sharp crack of ice and then you can try to shield behind another block of ice, but in this case, they really had nowhere to hide.”—AFP