Nishat, Mohit stranded for bad weather
Bangladeshi adventurer Wasfia Nazreen reached Namche Bazar safely yesterday while Nishat Majumder and MA Mohit remained stranded in Lukla for the second day yesterday due to bad weather.
“Now I am very close to Namche Bazar and hope to reach there within half an hour. I will stay here for a couple of days until flight details from Lukla to Kathmandu are confirmed,” Wasfia told The Daily Star over telephone around 9:00pm yesterday.
Namche Bazar is around 3,440 metres above sea level.
Wasfia said she was very tired and needed to rest to prepare herself for further trekking. “I will rest here for a few days,” she said.
Wasfia, who scaled the Everest on Saturday, dedicated her feat to Bangladeshi Women. In a status update on facebook in the early hours of Tuesday, she wrote, “….This is to the countless women around the world who are breathing day & night to break our ‘manmade’ shackles…”
In July 2011, she launched her expedition to scale the seven highest peaks in seven continents under a campaign “Bangladesh on Seven Summits” to celebrate 40 years of the country’s independence. She started her Everest expedition on March 26 this year.
On October 2 last year, she became the first Bangladeshi woman to reach the highest peak in Africa, the Uhuru peak of Mt Kilimanjaro at 5,895 metres in Tanzania. She scaled Mount Aconcagua in Argentina on December 16 last year.
Meanwhile, Nishat and Mohit reached Lukla–about 2,860 metres above sea level–on Sunday. They were scheduled to reach Kathmandu on Monday morning but flights to Kathmandu have remained suspended since Saturday due to bad weather.
“It’s a journey of only 30 minutes by air. If we make our way on foot, it will take seven days,” Mohit said over the telephone yesterday.
On reaching Kathmandu, it would take at least two days to complete all procedures including receiving certification from Nepal’s Tourism Ministry on their climb, he added.
A reception to honour Nishat and Mohit organised by the Bangladesh embassy in Kathmandu yesterday was postponed, he said.
A statement from Plan Nepal yesterday said the organisation would host a reception today (Wednesday) to honour Nishat and Mohit if they could reach Kathmandu by then. The Bangladesh chapter of Plan International co-sponsored Nishat and Mohit’s expedition under their campaign “Because I Am a Girl”.
The Plan Nepal statement quoted Nishat telling them on Monday over the telephone, “I want to tell every girl: nothing is impossible for them to do. If they want to, they can achieve anything they like. If a woman like me can climb Everest, any girl can do anything they set their mind on doing.”
Nishat made history as the first Bangladeshi woman to scale Mount Everest on May 19. Mohit is the first Bangladeshi to have scaled the mountain twice and from both sides.
-With The Daily Star input
