In a historic feat for Indian mountaineering, 13-year-old Malavath Purna became the youngest woman climber to scale the Mount Everest. Purna was accompanied by Sadhanapalli Anand Kumar (16), a Class IX student from the Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh, and completed the feat on Sunday morning.
Anand and Purna are both students of Andhra Pradesh Social Welfare Educational Society. “They climbed Everest at 6 am on Sunday after a 52-day long expedition,” he said. “Purna created a record by becoming the youngest girl to climb the Everest,” he said.
The duo was selected among 150 children who were initially chosen for adventure sports as part of the society’s initiative to promote excellence in the students of the society, he said. Twenty of them were sent to a prestigious mountaineering institute in Darjeeling for training and nine among them were sent on expedition to Indo-China border earlier.
The two students with a higher degree of toughness and endurance were sent to the Everest Expedition in April, he said. They will now be returning to the base camp, the official added.
Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi also congratulated Purna on her acievement. “Was very happy to read this. Congrats to our youngsters. They make us truly proud,” Modi said in a tweet, while sharing a news article on it.