
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 18, 1990                   TAG: 9007180056
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Short

MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS DIE IN AVALANCHE

One of the worst tragedies in the history of mountain climbing has claimed the lives of at least 40 members of an international team killed Friday by an avalanche in the remote Pamir mountains in the Soviet Union near the Chinese border, according to government reports.

The victims were buried when an earth tremor destabilized a mass of snow and debris, which fell onto a climbers' camp about two miles below the acme of Lenin Peak in the Central Asian range, the highest in the nation.

The victims included 27 Soviet climbers, principally a 23-member Leningrad team led by Leonid Troshchinenko, one of the nation's leading climbers, according to Soviet officials.

They said the dead also included six Czechoslovak climbers, four Israelis, two Swiss and a Spaniard.

Three other climbers have not been accounted for, and there have been conflicting reports about whether they died.

- The New York Times

by CNB