SYDNEY- The parents of an injured Australian climber traveled to Nepal on Monday to help their son retrieve the body of his wife from Mount Everest after she became the second person to perish on the world's highest mountain in as many days.
Maria Strydom, a 34-year-old university lecturer, developed altitude sickness and died while descending from the summit on Saturday, the Kathmandu-based company that organized her expedition said.
The deaths of Strydom and Dutch climber Eric Ary Arnold, as well as the disappearance of two Indian mountaineers over the weekend, are sober reminders of the deadly risks of scaling the 8,850-metre (29,035 feet) peak. Their ascents were among the first in three years.