A South Korean climber has been reported missing while descending the highest peak in the world, officials said Monday.

   The climber, identified as 24-year-old Song Won-bin, was descending Mount Everest in Nepal with a teammate on Saturday when he disappeared, a South Korean Embassy official in Nepal said.

   "(We're) assuming Song suddenly collapsed from altitude sickness and fell off a cliff," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We expect to hear the details when Song's teammate returns to base camp in the afternoon."

   The climbers were part of a team comprised of graduates of Chungnam High School in the central city of Daejeon, some 150 kilometers south of Seoul. Song and his teammate reached the 8,848-meter peak on Saturday then began their descent, according to the official who quoted the team leader from base camp.

   The team of about a dozen members flew to Nepal at the end of March to mark their school's 50th anniversary by scaling Mount Everest. They were due to return home later this month.

   The reported accident comes seven months after three other South Korean mountaineers, including renowned climber Park Young-seok, went missing during a climb on Annapurna in the Himalayas. (Yonhap News)