12 dead in Mount Everest avalanche Friday April 18,2014

In the most deadly accident on the world's highest peak, an avalanche swept the slopes of Mount Everest early Friday April 18,2014 killing at least 12 people

The avalanche occurred at around 6:45 am (0100 GMT) at an altitude of about 5,800 metres (19,000 feet) in an area known as the "popcorn field", which lies on the route into the treacherous Khumbu icefall

 
 

"We have retrieved 12 bodies from the snow, we don't know how many more are trapped underneath," Nepal Tourism Ministry official Dipendra Paudel told

Assisted by rescue helicopters, teams of climbers are still searching for survivors with at least seven people plucked alive from the ice and snow

A rescue team official working at the base camp of the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) peak, Lakpa Sherpa, told a news agency that the death toll could rise as high as 14.

An expert has termed today's accident as the "most deadly" in mountain's history.

The previous record was in 1996 when eight people from an expedition died in a tragedy immortalised in the best-selling book "Into Thin Air"

More than 300 people have died on Everest since the first successful summit by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953