Trapped Nepal tourists evacuated

The tourists have been taken to safety

Dozens of tourists have been evacuated from a remote northern district of Nepal after being trapped for three days by heavy snow.

A local official said all the tourists were taken to safety from the Manang area as soon as the weather improved.

Meanwhile, a search has been called off for seven French climbers and their 11 Nepalese guides who went missing after an avalanche on Kanguru peak last week.

On Tuesday, the body of one of the French climbers was recovered.

Earlier reports on Wednesday said as many as 400 tourists were stranded in Manang, some 200km (125 miles) north-west of the capital, Kathmandu.

The nationalities of the tourists are not known.

Mountain gorge

Meanwhile, the president of the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA), Bikram Neupane, told the BBC rescuers had brought the body of the French climber from Mount Kanguru back to the capital on Wednesday.

The French alpine team brought back a climber's body to Kathmandu

He said four French climbers sent by the French government had visited the area in western Nepal where the team went missing.

Mr Neupane said the bodies of the missing climbers were believed to have fallen into a mountain gorge and that it would be quite difficult to recover them.

All the French climbers and their 11 guides are now presumed dead.

Four Nepalese porters survived the avalanche and were rescued on Sunday.

Authorities in Kathmandu lost contact with the climbers after an avalanche triggered by heavy snowfalls hit the base camp at the 6,981m-high Kanguru peak.

Climbers use a short period between the end of the monsoon rains in September and the onset of winter to scale mountains in Nepal.