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Rescue operations cut down at Nepal trekking trail

Friends and family members wait to greet injured avalanche victims from Israel as they prepare to head homewards after receiving treatment at Ciwec Clinic in Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014. Rescue helicopter spotted nine more bodies Saturday on a trekking trail in northern Nepal bringing the death toll to 38 from this week’s series of snow storms and avalanches in the deadliest week of trekking disaster in Nepal. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha) Friends and family members wait to greet injured avalanche victims from Israel as they prepare to head homewards after receiving treatment at Ciwec Clinic in Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014. Rescue helicopter spotted nine more bodies Saturday on a trekking trail in northern Nepal bringing the death toll to 38 from this week’s series of snow storms and avalanches in the deadliest week of trekking disaster in Nepal. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

By Associated Press October 19, 2014 1 min read

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) – Officials in Nepal say rescue operations have been scaled down at the trekking trail where hundreds of hikers were caught in a blizzard last week.

Government official Yama Bahadur Chokhyal says helicopters flights were cut down on Sunday because most trekkers who were stranded have already left the area.

At least 38 people, including foreign trekkers, local guides and villagers, were killed in a series of snowstorms and avalanches in Nepal’s worst hiking disaster.

Also on Sunday, the upper section of the popular Annapurna Circuit, the trekking route in northern Nepal where the hikers got caught, was closed.