Four South Korean trekkers among seven missing in Nepal avalanche

Seventrekkers, includingfourSouthKoreans, wentmissinginNepal's northwest Himalayan region after anavalanchehit their trail, local police and hiking officials said on Saturday.

The area where theavalanchestruck the group, which also included three local guides, is estimated to be about 150 km (93.21 miles) northwest ofNepali capital Kathmandu, according to the officials. Theavalanchewas triggered by heavy rain and snowfall, they said.

"Fourof ourKoreanclients, who were trekking in the Annapurna region are not in contact and aremissingsince anavalanchestruck them on Friday," Sandesh Pandey, who runs the tour company which organized the hike, told reporters.

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Mount Annapurna, in northwestNepal, is the world's tenth highest mountain at 8,091 meters (26,545 feet) and its base camp is popular with thousands oftrekkerswho visit annually.

The threeNepali guides are also not reachable, said Mira Acharya, a tourism department official in Kathmandu.

Fourhelicopters have been deployed for the search and rescue mission with police and local volunteers also looking for thetrekkers, Acharya said, adding, however, that rough weather conditions were making the operation difficult.

The incident comes as the annual trekking season inNepal, home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountain peaks including Mount Everest, is drawing to a close.

It could potentially dampen the mood for the Himalayan nation's tourism industry, yet to recover from a devastating earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people in 2015 including 18 climbers and their guides at the base camp of Mount Everest.

Cash-strappedNepalearns 4 per centof GDP through income from tourists.

About 8 per cent of the nearly 1.1 million tourists who visited the country in 2019 went hiking or mountain climbing, according to official estimates.

Separately,fourrescue helicopters on Saturday evacuated nearly 200trekkersin the Annapurna region about 140 of them foreignersto safer locations, police said. Their nationalities are not yet known.