'Astonishing': Sherpa missing for 6 days on Mount Everest found alive

In what authorities are calling an "astonishing" testament of human survival, a Mount Everest sherpa was found alive on Thursday after he went missing six days ago on the world's tallest mountain.

The sherpa, identified as 52-year-old Hillary Dawa Sherpa, was discovered by a garbage collection team that spotted the mountain guide "sliding and crawling" down an icefall just above Everest base camp, officials said.

"He was found in a condition where he was slowly sliding down through the icefall. It is in itself an astonishing incident,"Pemba Sherpa, executive director of 8K Expeditions, which had coordinated the search for the missing man, told the Kathmandu Post.

Nepal Mount Everest, a hiking company that participated in the search for Dawa, said in a social media post Thursday that the guide survived the ordeal "alone for nearly a week without food, water, or supplemental oxygen."

"This is nothing short of a miracle," Nepal Mount Everest said in the post.

Suffering from exhaustion and severe frostbite on his hands, Dawa was flown by rescue helicopter to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he was reunited with his family.

"He recognized me is good and speaks," Dawa's daughter, Mhendo Lhamo Sherpa, told reporters at the hospital. "We are happy."

Dawa went missing last Friday, May 29, after he got separated from his client, a Polish climber, at an elevation of 24,600 feet, which is about 1,600 feet below the area dubbed the Everest "Death Zone," the point where the human body struggles to adjust to the extreme altitude, 8K Expeditions' Pemba said.

The sherpa and his client were returning to base camp after failing to make it to the mountain's 29,032-foot summit, officials said.

It was unclear how Dawa and his client, who made it to base camp, became separated. They were the last climbers heading down the mountain as the Everest climbing season drew to a close last month, according to Reuters.

A team from the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee was collecting garbage at the base camp, dismantling the guide ropes and fixing ladders along the route leading to the summit when they spotted Dawa navigating down the Khumbu Icefall. Rescuers described that location, which lies at an elevation of 17,999 feet, as a treacherousglacier known for its towering ice blocks and deep crevasses.

Lama Kazi Sherpa, a member of the committee, said his team helped bring Dawa, who was wearing his heavy-duty parka and insulated pants, down to base camp.

Dawa was found after a rescue helicopter had conducted an extensive search of the area where he went missing, Capt. Bibek Khadka of Altitude Air Nepal, the rescue operation that flew Dawa to the hospital, told The Kathmandu Post.