Australian woman and Dutch man die climbing Everest summit

An Australian university lecturer and a Dutch mountaineer have died of altitude sickness after summiting Mount Everest, the latest deaths to hit the ongoing Himalayan climbing season.

The Australian climber has been identified as Dr Maria Strydom, a finance lecturer from Victoria's Monash University.

Dr Strydom was an experienced climber who had mounted several peaks around the world over the past eight years.

Dr Maria Strydom was an experienced climber. Source: Monash University

The 34-year-old lecturer told Monash University in March she as prepared for the Himalayan trek and was aware of the dangers.

"I guess everyone who gets into high altitude mountain climbing casts a fleeting thought towards Mount Everest," Dr Strydom in the interview before her journey.

"We've all heard stories of frostbite and having to turn around from excessive waiting times due to inexperienced people blocking routes. This can lead to life threatening situations and death where Sherpas and other climbers have to risk their lives to attempt rescues," she added.

Dr Strydom was on her way down from Camp 4 to Camp 3 when she fell ill and died on Saturday afternoon, Pasang Phurba Sherpa, a board director at Seven Summit Treks, told AFP.

"After reaching the summit yesterday she said she was feeling very weak and suffering from a loss of energy... signs of altitude sickness," Sherpa said.

Dr Strydom died while descending the mountain. Source: Monash University

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The Dutch mountaineer, named as Eric Arnold, also suffered a bout of altitude sickness and died at Camp 4 late Friday while descending the world's highest mountain, according to Seven Summit Treks, which organised both climbers' expeditions.

"(He) was a Dutch mountaineer named Eric Arnold. We got the news from his team leader, Arnold Coster, at base camp," Sherpa said.

Arnold, 35, on Friday posted a picture on his Twitter account saying he had summited the 8,850-metre (29,035-foot) high peak on his fifth attempt. Last year, he was among the climbers caught in a deadly avalanche on Everest base camp following a massive earthquake.

The Dutch news agency ANP reported that Arnold had told his teammates after returning from the summit "my body has no energy left" adding he had apparently died in his sleep.

Around 330 climbers have successfully scaled Mount Everest this season after two consecutive years of deadly disasters, but two other mountaineers have died in the past few days.

A Nepali sherpa guide perished Thursday after he slipped and fell 2,000 metres down Mount Lhotse, the world's fourth-highest peak.

On the same day an Indian climber died after falling ill while descending from Mount Dhaulagiri, also in the Himalayas.

- 'Top of the world' -

A second Dutch climber, Niels van Buren, also scaled Everest on Friday to become the first patient suffering with multiple sclerosis (MS) to reach the top "after an intense journey of two months," his organisers Mission Summit said.

Van Buren, 37, has been in intensive training for three years for the ascent, which he hoped would raise awareness of MS and money for research into the disease.

Dr Strydom. Source: Monash University

"It all feels a little unreal," Van Buren said in a statement posted on the Mission Summit website. "...Slowly I come to realize that I stood on top of the world."

Nepal issued 289 permits to foreign mountaineers for this year's brief spring climbing season, which runs from mid-April to the end of May, after two consecutive failed seasons.

Hundreds of climbers fled Everest last year after an earthquake-triggered avalanche at base camp killed 18 people.

Eric Arnold. Source: Twitter/@EricArnold8850

Only one climber summited the mountain in 2014 after an avalanche killed 16 Nepali guides that year.

Since the first summit of Everest in 1953, more than 300 people, most of them Nepali, have died on Everest and Lhotse, which share the same route until Camp 3 at 7,200 metres.

Mountaineering is a major revenue-earner for the impoverished Himalayan nation but last year's earthquake, which killed almost 9,000 people, threatened the future of the country's climbing and trekking industry.

News break – May 22