KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Authorities say it took two days to recover the far-flung and battered bodies of nine climbers, including one of the world's best, who died in Nepal's worst mountaineering disaster in recent years.

A local police chief, Bir Bahadur Budamagar, says a group of villagers reached the climbers' camp site on Saturday on Gurja Himal, a less-popular but pristine mountain in the shadow of Dhaulagiri, the world's seventh-highest peak and a day's walk from the nearest village.

The climbers included Kim Chang-ho, the first South Korean to summit all 14 Himalayan peaks over 8,000 meters without using supplemental oxygen.

Budamagar says the injuries to the climbers, including broken limbs and smashed skulls, indicated a violent wind carrying chunks of ice swept the climbers away from their camp site.