KOTA KINABALU: A group of mountaineers are disputing claims by veteran climber T. Ravichandran that Malaysian Everest climber Muhammad Hawari Hashim was without a Sherpa on May 14 of this year.
The mountaineering groups said that they pieced together what they found out, giving a timeline of events prior to Hawari’s death, denying that he was alone throughout his climb.
According to the group, the information they gathered is a collective statement provided by eyewitnesses who were present during the occurrence, along with insights from the group.
Among other things, they said that on May 13, Hawari, who had hearing disabilities, had left Base camp at 11.30pm and arrived at Camp I at 8am.
After resting, Hawari continued and met up with Argentinian climber Hernan and his sherpa Nima Ongda, arriving at Camp II at 2.30pm on May 14.
The group said that Hernan claimed that Hawari was too fast for them and added that Hawari had met Camp Manager Ayu Wanirah at Camp II and informed her about an injured Sherpa Dawa Lama, and he showed her photos of the climb and even showed her a selfie of himself with Ravi at Camp I earlier.
The group said the rest of the team arrived at Camp II at 3.19pm and that they were all together on May 14 after the arrival.
The group explained that May 15 was a rest day and they all spent the day in Camp II and only pushed to Camp III on May 16 and headed to Camp IV on May 17.
On the night of May 17, they started a summit push for a possible summit on May 18.
The group also revealed that during the summit push at 2am on May 18, Mingma Dorchi Sherpa found Ravi just below "Balcony" at 8,300m.
Ravi was stranded, immobile and unresponsive. The sherpas started to help him by massaging his body, hands, and legs.
They said he was mumbling and incoherent and they spent 40 minutes helping him, while also increasing his supplement oxygen gauge to level four.
Ravi then gestured with this hand, and they understood that Ravi wanted to go down. The sherpas later brought him down by dragging him down the mountain.
On May 19, Hawari, who was among one of the participants of the Malaysia Everest 2023 (ME2023) mission, was reported missing in the mountainous area, when descending from Camp Four after conquering the world's highest peak.
On the same day, Malaysian Civil Defence Force (APM) Kedah director, Lt Col Awang Askandar Ampuan Yaacub, 56, another participant in the mission, was confirmed dead after falling while climbing to the peak of Mount Everest.
The search for Hawari ceased on May 28.
Following this incident, Ravi had come out to share that he was with Hawari for a while on May 14, and claimed that Hawari was alone when they met up.
Ravi had said he was unsure if Hawari had later met with his other teammates as they parted ways not long after that on May 14.
When contacted, he said he was not fit to comment on this matter as he was still trying to recover from frostbite.
"I am not fit to give any comments. Let me rest and recover from my frostbite," he said.
Ravichandran, famously known as Everest Ravi, was an experienced climber who had reached the tallest summit in the world three times.
