Joshua Cheruiyot Kirui, 40, and his 44-year-old sherpa guide, Nawang, had been missing above the Hillary Step since yesterday morning.

Sherpa rescuers recovered Kirui’s body late yesterday at about 19m below the 8,849m peak, Nepal’s department of tourism said.

Nawang was still missing, it said.

“It is not clear whether they went missing before reaching the peak or after climbing,” Khim Lal Gautam, who heads the Expedition Monitoring and Facilitation Field Office at the base camp, told Reuters.

Two Mongolian climbers died last week while descending from the summit.

A British man and a sherpa have been missing since Tuesday when they slipped and fell near the South Summit.

About 7,000 climbers have scaled the peak – many more than once – since it was first climbed by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, hiking officials say.

They say more than 335 climbers have died.