Sabina Bhattrai / EPA

A fight between Sherpas and three Western climbers broke out on Mount Everest on Saturday, with an argument beginning within a few thousand feet of the top escalating at a lower camp. The Westerners said they were attacked by about 100 Sherpas who punched and kicked them and threw rocks at them.

Editor's note: This article includes a correction.

A fight broke out high on the slopes of Mount Everest between a group of European climbers and local guides, officials and one of those involved have said.

The three Europeans, from Italy, Switzerland and the U.K., were headed for Camp 3 at about 23,600 feet on the 29,035-foot mountain on Saturday, when they crossed a fixed line being put in place by the Sherpa climbers and an angry altercation ensued, according to a statement issued by Italian climber Simone Moro’s team.

One Sherpa claimed the Westerners had injured another local climber by knocking ice down onto him and about 100 Sherpas later attacked the three Westerners at Camp 2, lower down the mountain.

They were punched and kicked, stones were thrown, and they were told they would be killed, Moro's statement said. However, another group of Westerners intervened and the three men headed down to Base Camp by a “circuitous route.”

“The climbers believe that the lead Sherpa was tired and cold and felt that his pride had been damaged as the three climbers were moving unroped and much faster to the side of him," the statement said.

“Whatever the reason may be, there is no reason to instigate vigilante rule and to try and kill three visiting climbers,” it added.

The statement said the incident began when Briton Jonathan Griffith crossed the line of rope being fixed by the Sherpas and then Swiss climber Ueli Steck did the same.

“At the point where Ueli Steck stepped over the rope the lead [Sherpa] climber noticed the climbers below and began shouting and banging the ice with his axe erratically,” Moro’s statement said.

“Still shouting down at the climbers, he fixed his rope and abseiled [rappelled] down … As Ueli was soloing and therefore not attached to a rope it was natural that he should hold his hands up to take the impact of the force arriving on him from the lead climber abseiling right on to him. This prompted the lead climber to accuse Ueli Steck of 'touching him,'” the statement said.

“In between hitting the ice with all his force and screaming at Ueli Steck 'why you touch me' he said that they had kicked ice down on them and injured a Sherpa. Seeing as the trio were climbing a completely independent line and entirely on snow this is highly unlikely,” it added.

Later, at Camp 2, the three men were attacked by “some 100 Sherpas,” the statement said.

“They became instantly aggressive and not only punched and kicked the climbers, but threw many rocks as well,” it said. “A small group of Westerners acted as a buffer between the out of control mob and the climbers, and they owe their lives to these brave and selfless people.”

The Sherpas are an ethnic group who live in the Everest region, and many of them work as climbing guides.

Beni Hyoju, an official of the Cho-Oyu Trekking agency that organized the expedition, told Reuters that the three Europeans had failed to comply with a request from their Sherpa guides to stay at a location while the guides fixed the route.

Hyoju said this made the Sherpas unhappy and they attacked the climbers. No one was critically wounded.

"Sherpas who were responsible for the fight will offer (an) apology," he added.

Tourism Ministry official Dipendra Paudel told Reuters that the government would ensure the safety and security of the climbers.

"There was a slight misunderstanding and communication gap between them," Paudel added in Kathmandu after contacting the base camp. "This has been sorted out and the climbers are at the base camp."

He told Reuters the European climbers would resume their bid to climb Everest.

Historian Elizabeth Hawley, who has been tracking foreign expeditions to Mount Everest for more than five decades, said she had "not heard of any such incident before."

Reuters contributed to this report

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Turning garbage 'into gold': Nepali artists transform Everest litter into art

Japanese climber, 80, aims for Everest record

Navesh Chitrakar / Reuters

Japanese climber Yuichiro Miura, 80, pictured in Kathmandu, Saturday.

KATHMANDU - Yuichiro Miura, an 80-year-old Japanese mountain climber who has had heart surgery four times, is heading to Mount Everest to try for his third ascent of the world's highest peak -- aiming to become the oldest person to reach the top.

Miura climbed to the summit of the 29,035 feet mountain in 2003 and 2008 -- and skied down Everest from an altitude of 26,246 feet in 1970.

Miura and a nine-person team will climb up the standard southeast ridge route, pioneered by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay when they became the first people to reach the summit in May 1953.

"The record is not so important for me," the white-haired Miura told Reuters in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, before setting out for the mountain.

"It is important to get to the top."

The record for the oldest person to climb the mountain is held by Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan, who reached the summit at the age of 76, in 2008.

A doctor specializing in heart ailments is in the team to keep an eye on Miura's health. The group hopes to summit in May.

Miura has skied down the highest mountains on each of the seven continents, and is merely following family tradition. His late father, Keizo Miura, skied down Europe's Mont Blanc at the age of 99.

"If you wish strongly, have courage and endurance, then you can get to the summit of your dream," said Miura.

He already has a new dream. He wants to ski down Cho Oyu, the world's sixth highest mountain at 26,906 feet, also in the Himalayas.

"Maybe, when I become 85 years old, and if I stay alive, I want to climb and ski down Cho Oyu," Miura said. "It is my next dream."

About 4,000 climbers have been to the top of Everest and about 240 people have died on its slopes. 

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A visitor takes a closer look at art made from trash picked from Mount Everest at a visual art symposium in Kathmandu on Nov. 20.

KATHMANDU, Nepal -- Fifteen Nepali artists were closeted for a month with a heap of 1.5 tons of trash picked up from Mount Everest. When they emerged, they had transformed the litter into art.

The 75 sculptures, including one of a yak and another of wind chimes, were made from empty oxygen bottles, gas canisters, food cans, torn tents, ropes, crampons, boots, plates, twisted aluminium ladders and torn plastic bags dumped by climbers over decades on the slopes of the world's highest mountain.

Kripa Rana Shahi, director of art group Da Mind Tree, said the sculpting -- and a resulting recent exhibition in the Nepali capital of Kathmandu -- was aimed at spreading awareness about keeping Mount Everest clean.

"Everest is our crown jewel in the world," Shahi said. "We should not take it for granted. The amount of trash there is damaging our pride."

Nearly 4,000 people have climbed the 29,035-foot Mount Everest, many of them several times, since it was first scaled by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953.

Although climbers need to deposit $4,000 with the government, which is refunded only after they provide proof of having brought the garbage generated by them from the mountain, activists say effective monitoring is difficult.

PhotoBlog: Nepali teen says she is youngest woman to climb Mount Everest

Climbers returning from the mountain say its slopes are littered with trash, which is buried under the snow during the winter and comes out in the summer when the snow melts.

'Nothing goes to waste in art'
The trash used in the art works was picked up from the mountain by Sherpa climbers in 2011 and earlier this year and carried down by porters and trains of long-haired yaks.

Laurence Tan / Reuters, file

A basket of garbage sits at Everest Base Camp, with the Himalayan range seen in the background, in May 2011.

The yaks were commemorated in one work. For another, empty oxygen cylinders were mounted on a metal frame to make Buddhist prayer wheels.

Another, by wall painter Krishna Bahadur Thing, is a Tibetan mandala painting showing the location of Mount Everest in the universe -- made by sticking yellow, blue and white pieces of discarded beer, food cans and other metals on a round board.

Visitors said they were amazed at the way waste products were turned into useful items.

"It shows that anything can be utilised in an artistic way and nothing goes to waste in art," said 18-year-old fine arts student Siddhartha Pudasaini.

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The art is on sale for prices from $15 to $2,300, with part of the proceeds going to the artists and the rest to the Everest Summiteers' Association, which sponsored the collection of garbage from the mountain, organizers said.

"Garbage on Everest is shameful. We are trying to turn it into gold here," association chief Wangchu Sherpa told Reuters.

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KATMANDU, Nepal -- A plane carrying trekkers to the Everest region crashed and caught fire just after takeoff Friday in Nepal's capital, killing 19 people.

The victims included British, Chinese and Nepali passengers, authorities said.

The pilot of the domestic Sita Air flight reported trouble two minutes after takeoff, and Katmandu airport official Ratish Chandra Suman said the pilot appeared to have been trying to turn back. 

The crash site is only 547 yards from the airport, and the wrecked plane was pointing toward the airport area.

Reuters said it was a twin-engine, propeller-driven Dornier aircraft.

Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the crash and identify the bodies. Suman said he could not confirm if the plane was already on fire before it crashed.

Villagers forced back by flames
Cellphone video shot by locals showed the front section of the plane was on fire when it first hit the ground and it appeared the pilot had attempted to land the plane on open ground beside a river.

The fire quickly spread to the rear, but the tail was still in one piece at the scene near the Manohara River on the southwest edge of Katmandu.

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Villagers were unable to approach the plane because of the fire and it took some time for firefighters to reach the area and bring the fire under control.

Nepal officials: 6 survive, 15 killed as plane hits mountain in Himalayas

Soldiers and police shifted through the crash wreckage looking for bodies and documents to help identify the victims.

Seven passengers were British and five were Chinese; the other four passengers and the three crew members were from Nepal, authorities said.

Large numbers of local people and security forces gathered at the crash site. The charred bodies were taken by vans to the hospital morgue.

Gateway to Everest
The weather in Katmandu and surrounding areas was clear on Friday morning, and it was one of the first flights to take off from Katmandu's Tribhuwan International Airport. Other flights reported no problems, and the airport operated normally.

The plane was heading for Lukla, the gateway to Mount Everest. Thousands of Westerners make treks in the region around the world's highest peak each year. Autumn is considered the best time to trek the foothills of the Himalayan peaks.

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In May, 15 people were killed when their plane crashed into a hill in northwest Nepal.

Autumn is the peak tourism season in Nepal, which has eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest. At least 11 people were killed in an avalanche in northwest Nepal on Sunday.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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