Who was Dhrubajyoti Guha? Mountaineer of Indian origin killed in Mt Manaslu avalanche

Indian-origin climber Dhrubajyoti Guha, 47, and his Nepalese Sherpa guide Fursemba Sherpa, 47, died in an overnight avalanche at Camp 3 on Mount Manaslu (8,163m), expedition organizers said on Sunday.

Two men were found buried in their tent after continuing their ascent while other climbers turned back.

Who is Dhrubajyoti Guha?

Based near Frankfurt, Germany, Dhrubajyoti Guha graduated in mechanical engineering from Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur (now IIEST Shibpur) in 2002, according to a Times of India (TOI) report. His professional career has included roles at ABB, IBM, Pfizer and Nestlé.

Outside of his corporate work, Guha was an accomplished ultra-endurance runner, completing 32 UTMB World Series races, including several over 100km.

The TOI report also noted that his guide Fursemba Sherpa was a very experienced NMA-registered guide from Nepal’s Makalu region. He had previously scaled Everest nine times and also climbed Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Cho Oya and Manasla.

A fatal attempt at the top

Mohan Lamsal, managing director of expedition organizer Makalu Adventure, said weather conditions worsened as the group reached higher camps.

Lamsal told TOI that while six other climbers decided to safely retreat from Camp 2, Guha and Sherpa decided to make an early summit attempt and headed to Camp 3 on Saturday night.

Contact with the climbers was lost overnight. “We were alerted around 11:30 a.m. on Sunday after they became unresponsive,” Lamsal said. “We immediately sent four Sherpa climbers to Camp III to look for them. They dug through the snow and found them both in their tent, buried under nearly seven feet of snow.”

Constant snowfall and a high avalanche risk made it impossible for the rescue team to bring the bodies down to base camp. Citing safety concerns, Lamsal asked the rescue team to descend to lower camps, saying they would try to recover the bodies once the weather improved.

Deadly season on the world’s eighth highest peak

Avalanche brings fall season death toll at Manaslu to four.

Earlier in the season, 50-year-old Singaporean climber Lau Wee Seng died at around 6,000 meters while descending from Camp 2 on 17 September, and 20-year-old Nepali high-altitude worker Tashi Sherpa was found dead in a base camp tent on 5 September.

Manaslu this fall attracted a record 480 foreign climbers, accompanied by more than 500 Nepalese guides and support staff.

The deaths of Guha and Sherpa take the number of reported climbing deaths in the Himalayas and Karakoram to at least 24 this year, making 2026 one of the deadliest years for climbers in the region.