An avalanche wiped out Camp 3 on Dhaulagiri I on 13 May, killing Spanish climbers Santiago Sagaste and Ricardo Valencia. The avalanche happened 47 years to the day the 8,167m high mountain was first climbed by an expedition led by Swiss climber Max Eiselin.

Top Austrian climber Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Spaniard Javi Serrano barely escaped the deadly masses of snow at 6,650m on the world's seventh highest mountain. "After having spent about 45 minutes digging myself out I looked around me and only then did I realise how bad the situation was. I immediately ran up to the site where the Spaniards' tent had been and started to shuffle like a mad woman," said Kaltenbrunner.

Unfortunately the 36-year-old mountaineer could only find the dead bodies of Santiago Sagaste and Ricardo Valencia. "I knew it would be unlikely to find anybody alive, but I carried on digging and screaming."

Earlier in the expedition Kaltenbrunner had abandoned her summit push when her climbing partner, Lucie Orsulova from the Czech Republic, got altitude sick at 7,400m. Kaltenbrunner has already climbed nine of the 14 eight-thousanders. "I had planned to push for the summit on my own but when I saw Lucie get worse by the minute it was clear to me that I would go down with her."

Together with her husband Ralf Dujmovits, Kaltenbrunner is now off to Pakistan to attempt the world's second highest mountain, K2 (8,611m).