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Tengboche: What Went Up In Flames?
On the night of 19 January, the main building and courtyard of the Tengboche monastery in the Khumbu region caught fire and burned to the ground. The fire had begun as the result of an electrical malfunction or accident, no one is certain which, associated with the small hydro facility commissioned less than a year ago.
Had the disaster occurred 30 years ago, it would have remained a strictly local affair, an event of importance only to the Sherpa people of Khumbu. But ever since Edmund Hillary stopped there on his way to the first ascent of Everest, Tengboche has become an increasingly important international landmark, and, until last month, perhaps the world's best known and best loved functioning monastery.