MUMBAI (Reuters) - Two weeks after an avalanche swept up and probably killed a group of climbers in the Himalayas, Indian authorities mounted efforts to pluck their bodies from an exposed mountain face, braving harsh weather and treacherous terrain.
FILE PHOTO: Snow-covered Nanda Devi mountain is seen from Auli town, in the northern Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, India February 25, 2014. Picture taken February 25, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer
The peaks in the 2,400-km (1,500-mile) -long range are among some of the world’s tallest and most dangerous, drawing thousands of adventurers who risk their lives scaling them each year.
This year alone, more than two dozen climbers have been killed on peaks in India, Nepal and Pakistan.
“It could be very frightening up there and it’s definitely going to snow,” said Purmal Dharmshaktu, 61, who has climbed Himalayan peaks for 35 years.
“It’s summer and the crevasses would have widened. This is an incredibly tough task.”
The retrieval could take days, if not weeks, said officials who have been forced to abort aerial recovery bids because of the rugged terrain.
(Graphic link: tmsnrt.rs/2X594cE)
The Indian air force, border police and state and national disaster officials have been drafted into the recovery plans. A team of 32 launched a fresh ground and aerial effort on Tuesday that is expected to run 25 days.
“It is difficult for a helicopter to hover for long in that area,” said Vijay Kumar Jogdande, a government official in India’s northern state of Uttarakhand, adding that a three-sided bowl-shaped geographic configuration complicated the task.
The eight feared killed in the avalanche had targeted Nanda Devi East, a sister mountain of the Nanda Devi peak that is 7,816 m (25,643 ft) tall. Both rank among the world’s most challenging peaks, conquered by only a handful of people.
In an effort to acclimatize before that bid, however, the group, led by expert Martin Moran, set out to scale an unclimbed 6,477-m (21,250-ft) -high peak, said deputy leader Mark Thomas.
Thomas, and three others on the expedition, survived because they did not attempt that climb.
Moran and his companions did not return to their base camp on May 29 as planned, with five bodies being spotted by a helicopter on June 3, at a height of about 5,000 m (16,404 ft).
Climbing regulator the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) is sending a separate expedition of 12 on Wednesday. It will take an alternate route to reach the bodies by June 19, IMF spokesman Amit Chowdhury told Reuters.
The eight missing climbers have been identified as Moran, John Mclaren, Rupert Whewell and Richard Payne, all from Great Britain; Anthony Sudekum and Ronald Beimel from the United States; Ruth McCance from Australia; and Chetan Pandey, an Indian, who was the IMF’s liaison officer.
Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal; Editing by Euan Rocha and Clarence Fernandez
A picture of the Kokuka Courageous, one of two that were hit in suspected attacks in the Gulf of Oman, is displayed during a news conference by the ship owner Kokuka Sangyo Ltd. at the company office in Tokyo, Japan June 13, 2019, in in this photo released by Kyodo. Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERS
TOKYO (Reuters) - Two “flying objects” damaged a Japanese tanker in a suspected attack on Thursday in the Gulf of Oman, but there was no damage to the cargo of methanol, the president of the shipping company said on Friday.
The Kokuka Courageous was sailing toward the port of Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates after the crew, which had evacuated after the incident, returned, President Yutaka Katada of Kokuka Sangyo told a press conference. It was being escorted by the U.S. Navy, he said.
“The crew told us something came flying at the ship, and they found a hole,” Katada said. “Then some crew witnessed the second shot.”
Katada said there was no possibility that the ship, carrying 25,000 tons of methanol, was hit by a torpedo.
The crew saw an Iranian military ship in the vicinity on Thursday night Japan time, Katada said.
The United States blamed Iran for attacking the Kokuka Courageous and another tanker, the Norwegian-owned Front Altair, on Thursday, but Tehran denied the allegations.
Japanese Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko said on Friday that the incidents will be discussed at a meeting of G20 energy and environment ministers this weekend.
Seko declined to comment on American officials blaming Iran, saying Japan is still investigating the incident, which occurred while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Tehran trying to help ease rising tensions between the United States and Iran.
Reporting by Junko Fujita; writing by Malcolm Foster; editing by Richard Pullin
(Reuters) - A David and Goliath battle is brewing in the business of selling prescription medicines for pets, pitching veterinarians against online giants moving into this lucrative corner of the growing market for animal supplies.
Destiny Brown, Dr. Katie Buss, and Kingsley family pose with puppies at the Kings Veterinary Hospital in Loveland, Ohio, U.S., on April 26, 2019. Picture taken on April 26, 2019. Courtesy Jennifer Blodgett/Kings Veterinary Hospital/Handout via REUTERS
Americans spent $72.56 billion last year on their pets, according to American Pet Products Association. Prescription drugs were expected to account for over $10 billion, according to an estimate here from the Federal Trade Commission, and overall pet product sales are expected to keep growing by 4% a year. (Graphic:tmsnrt.rs/2KfxTvy)
With deep discounts and online convenience, Walmart Inc, soon-to-be listed Chewy.com and Amazon.com Inc’s Wag brand have effectively conquered the market for pet food, care products and other supplies, but until now veterinary practices, which both prescribe and sell drugs, have been a major source of prescription medication.
While Amazon so far has shown no interest in that market, Chewy’s and Walmart’s forays into the online pet pharmacy business threaten to change that, prompting veterinary clinics to seek help in defending their turf. Enter Covetrus Inc, Vet Source, which partners with Patterson Companies Inc, and others that offer tools to help vets manage their practices and give customers the convenience they have come to expect from online shopping.
“We started to realize this is what our clients want,” said Stephanie Foster, practice manager at Kings Veterinary Hospital in Loveland, Ohio. “They want to be able to order things at 11 o’ clock at night. They’re used to the Amazon mentality.”
Foster says she began using Covetrus to order drugs and supplies for the practice after it began losing sales of pet food and other products to online retailers. Now, her hospital has a website run by Covetrus under the practice’s name that effectively acts as its online pharmacy.
With that comes software that helps the clinic manage its inventory and track prescriptions, so Foster knows when clients need a refill and for those Covetrus collects a service fee that is a percentage of sales.
Foster said partnering with Covetrus has helped boost overall sales by half over the past three years because it gives clients online convenience, timely reminders and, despite the fees, competitive prices.
“Covetrus now has more leverage with the manufacturers than I will ever have as a small business,” she said. “They’re able to get the manufacturers to agree to instant rebates and they can do flash sales on products and things that we just can’t compete with.”
The company, formed by the combination of medical supply firm Henry Schein’s animal health unit and Vet’s First Choice and listed in February, represents some 100,000 veterinary practices globally. In the United States, 27,000 use some form of its services with over 8,000 - about a quarter of the market - signed up for prescription management, Covetrus says.
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PetSmart Inc-backed Chewy.com, whose sales soared from $26 million to $3.5 billion between 2012 and 2018, said in a filing ahead of its New York Stock Exchange debut this month it planned to expand its online pharmacy business launched last year.
The company has yet to update on the pharmacy’s performance and it would not comment for this article, citing the silent period ahead of its stock exchange debut.
Walmart joined the fray last month when it launched its online pet pharmacy WalmartPetRx.com and said it aimed to operate 100 in-store animal clinics by the end of the year.
Analysts say, however, the prescription pet medicine business could prove more challenging than other pet products.
Those who want to buy medication online still need a prescription from a vet and must either email or upload a copy or have the online retailer contact the practice first.
That, analysts say, offers the practices a chance to sell the first batch on site and then direct customers to their own online service.
Kristen Cook, a practice manager at the Belton Veterinary Clinic in Belton, Texas, says their doctors have no obligation to write a prescription for those shopping elsewhere and the clinic’s policy is to handle prescriptions internally.
“It’s not something like I am handing them a piece of paper to take it wherever they want to take it,” Cook said.
The stakes are high.
Cook said that at least half of the clinic’s revenue comes from prescription drug sales.
Nationally, pharmacy sales on average make up about a third of a practice’s revenue, according to Gary Glassman, partner at accounting and financial services firm Burzenski & Company, which serves veterinary practices across the country.
The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) says, however, that 40 states have already adopted laws, regulations or guidelines that specifically or implicitly require veterinarians to provide a written prescription upon request in some circumstances.
To see the summary report from AVMA, please click here here
This means pet owners could fill those prescriptions with Chewy or other online providers, and the market is just too attractive to e-commerce players for the vets and their partners to get complacent, analysts say.
According to a 2018 TD Ameritrade online survey of U.S. millennial pet owners, they were willing to spend up to $2,000 on average if their pet got sick, with dog owners prepared to spend more on their pets than what they expected to spend on their own healthcare.
“People are treating their pets more like people,” William Blair analyst John Kreger said. “Historically ... you’d frankly euthanize the pet when they started to have some of these chronic conditions. That’s just not happening now.”
Reporting by Tamara Mathias and Manas Mishra in Bengaluru, Writing by Patrick Graham; Editing by Tomasz Janowski
