By Ryan Woo
BEIJING (Reuters) -More than 200 remaining trekkers trapped by a snowstorm over the weekend near the eastern face of Mount Everest in Tibet are being evacuated, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.
The evacuation began on Monday and should be completed by Tuesday, said the source, who was not authorised to speak to the media on the matter and declined to be identified.
The Tibetan regional government had no immediate comment on the evacuation.
Earlier, some 350 other trekkers
stranded by the blizzard in the remote valley of Karma in Tibet had been guided to safety by local rescuers.
Chinese outdoor enthusiasts have flocked to the country's rugged interior in recent days, spurred by the eight-day National Day holiday that kicked off on October 1.
In western China, hundreds of trekkers, including those in the Karma valley hoping to catch a glimpse of Everest's eastern Kangshung face, were caught off-guard by the sudden heavy snowfall, according to state media reports.
Snow started falling in the Karma valley, which lies at an altitude averaging 4,200 metres (13,800 feet), on Friday evening and continued through Saturday.
The valley, first explored by Western travellers a century ago, is a relatively pristine part of the Everest region. Unlike the peak's arid north face, it boasts lush vegetation and untouched alpine forests, fed by meltwaters from the Kangshung glacier at the foot of the world's highest mountain.
In the Qilian Mountains on the border straddling western Qinghai and Gansu provinces, at least one trekker who was stranded in a gully by the snowstorms died, while 137 others were evacuated, state-run Beijing News reported.
Further west in Xinjiang, authorities suspended hiking activities in Kanas, a lake district in the Altai Mountains, after roads turned dangerously icy and were blanketed with snow, Beijing News said.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Kate Mayberry)
