{"id":598515,"date":"2026-09-12T22:50:28","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T22:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/598515\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T22:50:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T22:50:28","slug":"kabardino-balkaria-avalanche-deathtoll-climbs-to-13-as-rescue-efforts-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/598515\/","title":{"rendered":"Kabardino-Balkaria Avalanche Deathtoll Climbs to 13 as Rescue Efforts Continue"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least 13 people are now confirmed to have died\u00a0after an avalanche struck a group of climbers in the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, Russian emergency services said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The avalanche swept down Mount Mizhirgi, one of the highest peaks in the North Caucasus, at around 5 p.m. local time on Sunday, hitting a group of 33 climbers. Ten climbers had made their own way down the mountain by Monday morning.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Emergency Situations Ministry said<\/a> 12 bodies had been lowered to the Bezengi base camp on Tuesday evening, with the fate of five climbers still unknown.\u00a0By Wednesday morning, the ministry said rescuers found<\/a> the body of the 13th climber.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s National Guard said<\/a> some of its servicemen were among the dead. It also\u00a0denied\u00a0reports<\/a> that the victims included members of its elite Vityaz formation, which specializes in high-risk law enforcement operations.<\/p>\n

One of those killed was a professional climber involved in training \u201crepresentatives of law enforcement agencies,\u201d Alexander Yakovenko, a member of the Russian Mountaineering Federation, told<\/a> the newspaper Kommersant.<\/p>\n

Search and rescue efforts have been hampered by difficult terrain and a high risk of further avalanches, officials said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least 13 people are now confirmed to have died\u00a0after an avalanche struck a group of climbers in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[294965,273,294964,1242,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-598515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-emergency-situations-ministry","tag-environment","tag-kabardino-balkaria","tag-natural-disasters","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}