Workers sent by a Nepali expedition operator spotted five bodies near Yalung Ri on August 5, 2026, Reuters reported on August 7. The sighting came nine months after an avalanche killed seven climbers on the Himalayan peak in Nepal's Rolwaling region.

The remains are believed to be those of three foreign climbers and two Nepali high-altitude workers who had not been recovered after the November 3, 2025 disaster. Kumar Khadka, an official in the local government area covering the mountain, told Reuters that formal identification had not been completed.

Poor weather kept a recovery team from reaching the site as of August 7. The update marked a discovery rather than a recovery: no report reviewed for this article said the bodies had been removed from the mountain.

The November search ended with five people still missing

Search teams recovered the bodies of Italian climber Paolo Cocco and French climber Christian Andre Manfredi, then ended the operation on November 7 with five people still buried beneath hardened snow. The missing were Italian-Canadian climber Marco Di Marcello, Italian climber Markus Kirchler, German climber Jakob Schreiber, and Nepali guides Padam Tamang and Mere Karki.

Senior mountain guide Pasang Kidar Sherpa said three days of digging had failed to locate the five. He told The Himalayan Times that the snow had become too hard to excavate and that searchers planned to return in June or July, when melting was expected to soften the site.

Mountaineers moving across a snow-covered high-altitude slope (illustrative image)

Summer melting exposed the site but did not open access

People involved in the operation attributed the August sighting to warmer summer conditions that melted snow covering the bodies. That account is consistent with the November plan to wait for a thaw, but it does not establish how long the remains had been exposed or their exact position in the avalanche debris.

Weather remained a separate barrier after the bodies were seen. Phurba Tenjing Sherpa of the Nepal-based expedition company Dreamers' Destination said the team trying to reach the location had been stopped below the site by adverse conditions.

The identities and recovery status remain unresolved

The August sighting does not by itself establish that the five bodies are the five people missing from the 2025 avalanche. Formal identification and recovery remained outstanding in the latest account available for this report.

APPI News could not find a public notice from Nepal Police or Nepal's Department of Tourism confirming the August sighting at the time of writing. The August account therefore relies on Reuters interviews with a local official and the expedition company; any later recovery or identification would require a new official update.