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One-Third Of Everest Deaths Are Sherpa Climbers

The job of guiding climbers up the Himalayas has brought money and development to their communities, but little glory for the Sherpas.
Rescuers carry a Sherpa injured by an avalanche that flattened parts of Everest Base Camp on April 25, 2015. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal and took at least 17 lives at Everest Base Camp, including seven Sherpas.

Our series Take A Number is exploring problems around the world — and the people who are trying to solve them — through the lens of a single number.

The autographs of people who have stood atop the world's highest mountain line the walls of the Rum Doodle Bar and Restaurant in Kathmandu. The best known is the late Edmund Hillary, half of the two-person team that first reached the top of Mount Everest in 1953. His climbing partner, the late Tenzing Norgay, was a member of Nepal's Sherpa ethnic group.

"Tenzing Norgay he doesn't know how to sign, he's not literate, so we only have his picture over there," explains Rum Doodle's chef Rojal Baidya, giving

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