Last updated September 21, 2026
Manaslu 1972 Avalanche: 15 Killed at Camp III
At about 3:15 a.m. on April 10, 1972, a huge avalanche overwhelmed Camp III of the Second Korean Manaslu Expedition at roughly 6,500 m on the Northeast Face. Fifteen people were killed—four Koreans, Japanese photographer Kazunari Yasuhisa, nine high-altitude Sherpa porters and one Sherpa cook. Three people survived being swept more than a kilometre down the mountain through repeated avalanches. It remains the deadliest single disaster in Manaslu’s climbing history.
What happened in the 1972 Manaslu avalanche?
The South Korean team was attempting Manaslu’s Northeast Face, broadly following the route used on the 1956 first ascent. After heavy snowfall, Camp III at about 6,500 m was hit by a huge avalanche early on April 10. Contemporary Himalayan records count 15 deaths: four Koreans, one Japanese photographer and ten Sherpa staff. Kim Yae-Sup and two Sherpas survived the initial slide. The American Alpine Journal reported that the three were carried roughly 2,500 ft, then hit by another avalanche that swept them about 1,000 ft farther before they escaped the debris.
Manaslu’s Deadliest Single Climbing Disaster
The event is often overshadowed today by Manaslu’s commercial era and the 2012 avalanche. The 1972 Camp III disaster killed more people in one event than any other recorded Manaslu accident.
The 1972 Camp III Was on the Side Used by Manaslu’s First Ascent
The expedition approached through Nepal to the Northeast Face. The Himalayan Database records Base Camp at about 4,300 m, Camp I at 5,200 m, Camp II at 5,850 m and Camp III at 6,500 m. Modern camp positions vary by season and should not be assumed to match the 1972 sites exactly.
1972 route context
This map is broad orientation, not an exact reconstruction of Camp III.
The 1972 Expedition Followed a Fatal 1971 Attempt
Kim Ho-Sup’s Korean team had tried the same Northeast Face in 1971. During a summit attempt, his brother Kim Ki-Sup died after a fall into a crevasse near 7,600 m, and the expedition was abandoned. The next year the family and Korean climbing community returned.
The Kim Family Had Already Lost a Brother on Manaslu
The 1971 South Korean expedition, led by Kim Ho-Sup, reached about 7,600 m on the Northeast Face. The American Alpine Journal reported that Kim Ki-Sup fell about 100 ft into a crevasse during the summit attempt and died. The team immediately abandoned the climb.
First Korean attempt
The team used the Northeast Face and reached approximately 7,600 m.
It was already a serious high-altitude expedition.Kim Ki-Sup died
Contemporary records describe a fatal fall into a crevasse during the summit attempt.
The expedition ended immediately.The family returned
The Second Korean Manaslu Expedition came back to the same side of the mountain.
The return ended in a far larger tragedy.The Team Had Already Reached 7,200–7,250 m Before the Disaster
The Himalayan Database lists the 1972 South Korean expedition under leader Kim Jung-Sup. Contemporary American Alpine Journal reporting refers to Kim Ho-Sup as the climbing leader; both descriptions can be true within a large expedition structure.
Later Korean expedition history says the team had ten Korean members and reached Camp IV at about 7,200 m on April 7. The AAJ says climbers had previously reached about 23,800 ft—roughly 7,250 m—before the Camp III avalanche.
The records differ slightly in titles, not in the disaster.
The core facts are consistent: a South Korean expedition on the Northeast Face, Camp III at roughly 6,500 m, fifteen deaths and three survivors from the camp.
The Avalanche Struck Camp III at About 3:15 a.m.
The most detailed surviving account comes from Elizabeth Hawley’s Reuters dispatch, preserved in The Himalaya by the Numbers.
Kim Yae-Sup woke to prepare for an early start
He began making hot water. Two Sherpas commented that there had been too much snowfall and expressed concern about conditions on the mountain.
The first major avalanche hit Camp III
Kim Yae-Sup heard the avalanche and woke Park Chang-Hee and Kazunari Yasuhisa in the same tent. They tried to get out before the slide arrived.
Three men were carried about 800 m
Hawley’s account says Kim, Park and Yasuhisa were thrown downhill in several violent impacts before coming to a stop. Park and Yasuhisa were badly injured but initially alive.
Another avalanche struck the survivors
The second slide killed and buried Park and Yasuhisa and carried Kim roughly another 300 m down the mountain.
Kim survived further avalanches
The Reuters account says three additional avalanches hit him. He survived with severe frostbite and was later evacuated to Kathmandu.
The remaining tents were destroyed
Kim Ho-Sup, Oh Sae-Keun and Song Joon-Haeng were in another tent. Ten Sherpa staff occupied two other tents. All were killed.
A High Camp Can Be a Place of Rest and a Place of Exposure
This is a modern Manaslu camp photograph, not the 1972 Camp III. The historical lesson is structural: when tents sit inside a large avalanche path, climbers and staff are exposed while sleeping and have almost no warning time.
The Climbers, Photographer and Sherpa Staff Lost at Camp III
The available English-language historical record names the four Korean victims and the Japanese photographer. The Reuters/Himalayan Database record identifies the ten Nepali victims as nine high-altitude Sherpa porters and one Sherpa cook but does not preserve their names in the accessible text.
The ten Sherpa deaths must remain visible in the history.
Two-thirds of the people killed were Nepali expedition staff. Any account that describes the event only as the deaths of five foreign climbers badly understates what happened at Camp III.
Kim Yae-Sup and Two Sherpas Were Swept Down the Mountain
The American Alpine Journal gives the simplest version: the three survivors were swept about 2,500 ft but remained unburied; a second avalanche then carried them roughly another 1,000 ft before they extricated themselves.
Kim Yae-Sup
The youngest brother in the Kim family was at Camp III and later gave a detailed hospital interview.
He survived multiple avalanches and severe frostbite.Two Sherpas
Contemporary summaries confirm that two Sherpas survived with Kim Yae-Sup.
The readily accessible summaries do not give their names.Away from Camp III
The AAJ reported that seven other expedition members were not at the camp when the avalanche struck.
Location—not a separate technical choice—was decisive that night.
The Survivors Remembered Concern About Too Much Snow
The historical account does not give us a modern avalanche forecast or a complete snow profile. It does tell us that Sherpa staff at Camp III were worried about the amount of snowfall only hours before the avalanche struck.
The Record Supports Heavy-Snow Avalanche Conditions, Not a Precise Modern Reconstruction
Unlike some modern accidents with weather stations, satellite imagery and detailed post-incident snow analysis, the 1972 record is sparse. It is safest to stay close to what the eyewitness and expedition sources actually say.
| What the sources support | Evidence | What we should not claim |
|---|---|---|
| There had been heavy snowfall | Kim Yae-Sup reported that two Sherpas were worried that too much snow had fallen. | A precise snowpack structure, weak layer or avalanche problem type. |
| A huge avalanche destroyed Camp III | AAJ, Korean expedition history and Hawley’s Reuters account all agree. | That one specific serac, slab or cornice was definitively the trigger unless a primary source identifies it. |
| Multiple avalanches ran that morning | Kim described the initial avalanche followed by additional slides during his survival. | That the event was one isolated release with a single runout pulse. |
| Camp placement created catastrophic exposure | Fifteen people in tents at Camp III were caught while seven members elsewhere survived. | That modern Camp III occupies the exact same site or has the exact same hazard geometry. |
A historical avalanche is not a modern forecast.
The useful lesson is not that “3:15 a.m. is dangerous” or that the 1972 camp location predicts today’s route. In fact, Himalayan Database analysis highlights the 1972 disaster precisely because it occurred outside the hours commonly associated with daytime warming: no time of day makes a heavily loaded avalanche path automatically safe.
Sleeping Exposure Is Different From Moving Exposure
A climber crossing a threatened slope may be exposed for minutes. A high camp can place an entire team in the same path for hours. That is why high-camp siting can matter as much as movement technique on avalanche-prone 8,000ers.
The 1972 avalanche erased Camp III. Four decades later, the 2012 Manaslu avalanche again demonstrated how vulnerable sleeping teams can be when a large avalanche reaches a high camp.
1972 and 2012 were different accidents.
They occurred in different seasons, at different camp configurations and under different expedition systems. This page does not merge them into one causal story; the comparison is about the recurring consequence of high-camp avalanche exposure.
The Survivors Left Manaslu After the Avalanche
The Reuters account preserved by The Himalayan Database says the expedition did not continue. Kim Yae-Sup was evacuated to Kathmandu with frostbite, while surviving team members remained temporarily to recover whatever baggage could be salvaged.
Kim Yae-Sup to Kathmandu
He was flown from the mountain area and treated at Shanta Bhawan Hospital.
His hospital interview became the core eyewitness account.Attempt abandoned
The Himalayan Database records the expedition termination as a fatal avalanche at Camp III.
There was no further summit attempt that spring by the Korean team.Nepal’s deadliest avalanche at the time
Later Himalayan Database analysis described it as the previous record avalanche death toll for a single Nepal expedition before the 2005 Kang Guru disaster.
On Manaslu, the 15-death toll remains unmatched.
The Team Returned to Manaslu Again
Kim Jung-Sup later wrote that the Korean Manaslu project continued. A third Korean expedition returned in 1976, carrying the memory of brothers Kim Ki-Sup and Kim Ho-Sup and the other victims of the earlier attempts.
Manaslu Continued to Be Climbed—and Continued to Avalanche
The 1972 catastrophe did not close the Northeast Face. The route remained central to Manaslu climbing and evolved into today’s dominant commercial line.
German team reached the summit from the northeast
Gerhard Schmatz, Sigi Hupfauer and a Sherpa climber summited from the east/northeast side, showing the route remained viable after the Korean disaster.
Japanese women’s expedition treated C2–C3 as the dangerous zone
The Himalayan Journal specifically noted concern about ice avalanches between Camps II and III in the area associated with the 1972 Korean tragedy.
The Korean Manaslu project returned
Kim Jung-Sup led the third Korean expedition and published a retrospective that directly remembered the 1971 and 1972 losses.
Another catastrophic high-camp avalanche
Eleven climbers were killed in Manaslu’s modern commercial era, reinforcing avalanche exposure as the mountain’s defining objective hazard.
The mountain is now heavily commercial
Hundreds of climbers use the Northeast Face each autumn, but current scale does not erase the historical hazard record.
The 1972 Avalanche Accounts for a Large Share of Manaslu’s Historical Deaths
The current Himalayan Database table used by Global Summit Guide records 90 Manaslu deaths, 3,238 summit records and 7,085 member records. The 15 deaths from April 1972 therefore represent about one-sixth of the mountain’s recorded historical fatalities in that current dataset.
This is why disaster pages belong beside the data pages.
The parent death-rate table can tell you Manaslu’s cumulative numbers. The 1972 event explains how those numbers were created: one heavily exposed camp, one avalanche cycle, and fifteen deaths in a few minutes.
Manaslu’s Two Defining Avalanche Disasters Are Related—but Not the Same Event
Both events show how high-camp exposure can concentrate risk. They should still be kept historically separate.
| Factor | 1972 | 2012 |
|---|---|---|
| Expedition era | Large national expedition | Modern multi-team commercial season |
| Deaths | 15 | 11 |
| Primary setting | Korean Camp III, Northeast Face | High camps on the modern Northeast Face route |
| Source picture | Heavy snowfall and repeated avalanches; exact modern trigger reconstruction unavailable | Far richer modern reporting, including serac and snow-loading discussion |
| Shared lesson | High-camp avalanche exposure can produce mass casualty events while teams sleep | Same structural lesson in a very different expedition system |
Direct Answers About the Disaster
The most detailed contemporary survivor material comes from Elizabeth Hawley’s Reuters dispatch, now preserved in Himalayan Database analysis.
How many people died in the 1972 Manaslu avalanche?
Fifteen people died: four South Koreans, Japanese photographer Kazunari Yasuhisa, nine high-altitude Sherpa porters and one Sherpa cook.
When did the Manaslu 1972 avalanche happen?
The avalanche struck Camp III at about 3:15 a.m. on April 10, 1972.
Where was Camp III?
The Himalayan Database records the Korean expedition’s Camp III at about 6,500 metres, or 21,300 feet, on the Northeast Face route. Modern camp locations vary and should not be assumed to be identical.
Who survived the 1972 Manaslu avalanche?
Kim Yae-Sup and two Sherpas survived at Camp III. The American Alpine Journal says they were swept roughly 2,500 feet, then carried about 1,000 feet farther by another avalanche before extricating themselves.
Who were the Korean victims?
The named Korean victims in the contemporary record were climbing leader Kim Ho-Sup, Oh Sae-Keun, Song Joon-Haeng and Park Chang-Hee.
Who was the Japanese victim?
Kazunari Yasuhisa was a Japanese professional photographer associated with the expedition. Himalayan Database records also connect him to the 1971 Korean Manaslu expedition.
What caused the Manaslu 1972 avalanche?
The historical record confirms heavy snowfall concerns, a huge avalanche that destroyed Camp III and multiple subsequent avalanches. The sources available for this page do not support a precise modern reconstruction of the trigger or weak-layer mechanics.
Was the 1972 avalanche Manaslu’s deadliest disaster?
Yes. With 15 deaths, it remains the deadliest single recorded climbing disaster on Manaslu, exceeding the 11-death avalanche of 2012.
The Record Comes From Contemporary Mountaineering Sources and Hawley’s Reporting
The victim count, Camp III elevation and survivor sequence are supported by the American Alpine Journal, Korean expedition history and The Himalayan Database’s preservation of Elizabeth Hawley’s Reuters dispatch.
Fifteen People Died Because One High Camp Sat in the Path of a Catastrophic Avalanche Cycle.
The disaster should be remembered first through the people lost—especially the ten Sherpa staff whose names are largely absent from accessible English accounts—and then through what the event reveals about high-camp exposure. Manaslu is far more commercial today, but avalanches remain the mountain’s defining objective hazard. Historical statistics become useful only when they lead back to the terrain and decisions that created them.
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