Foreigners climbed Mount Everest for the first time since Nepal's government reopened the mountain after it was shut last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, despite recent coronavirus cases at its base camp.

Nepal is so short of oxygen canisters that it has asked climbers on Mount Everest to bring back their empties instead of abandoning them on mountain slopes, an official said on Monday, as it struggles with a second wave of the coronavirus.

Health workers and authorities in Nepal are struggling to contain a massive surge of Covid-19 cases as infections spill over from neighbouring India's deadly second wave.

Three advisers to Nepal's Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli said on Saturday they had tested positive for Covid-19, which has claimed the lives of 528 people in the country.