Canadian cardiologist caught in avalanche in Nepal

The sister of a Canadian cardiologist missing since an avalanche smashed into his climbing expedition on a Himalayan peak says she has no choice but to cling to the faint hope he will be found alive.

Quebec heart specialist Dominique Ouimet, 48, was among several people still missing Monday in northern Nepal on Mount Manaslu, the world’s eighth-tallest peak.

Officials say at least nine people are dead after the avalanche roared through their camp around 4 a.m. Sunday, while more than two dozen climbers were still sleeping in their tents.

Rescue teams scoured the area Monday for six missing climbers.

The doctor’s sister, Isabelle Ouimet, told Radio-Canada in an interview she had not given up on the possibility that her brother is still alive.

“Even if the chances are, perhaps, slim, I think we have to hang on to the idea that he is made strong, that he is without a doubt in a good position in hope that he receives our energy,” she said.

A passionate and experienced mountaineer, Ouimet undertook the Himalayan expedition to raise money for his patients in the cardiology unit of a hospital in St-Jerome, north of Montreal. He spoke just last week about why he started this fundraising endeavour.

“I asked myself, ‘Why don’t I connect my personal passion with something useful, something more altruistic and that goes beyond just me?’ ” Ouimet told Radio-Canada from a Himalayan camp at an altitude of 4,820 metres.

On Monday, four rescue helicopters scanned the slope’s peak in search of the missing, while climbers and guides conducted searches by foot. Ten climbers survived, but many of them were injured and were airlifted to hospitals. By midday, rescuers had brought down eight bodies and were trying to retrieve the ninth from the 7,000-metre area where the avalanche struck, police Chief Basanta Bahadur Kuwar said.

At least six more climbers were believed to be still missing. Kuwar said the identities of the climbers killed and missing were still unclear but he confirmed the missing included Ouimet.