A top Everest climber says an Indian family is pushing their daughter to her death on Mt Everest for family prestige.

Duncan Chessell, who became the first South Australian to scale Mt Everest in 2001, is desperately sending out an SOS to save the life of Sukhinder aka Sukhi, an Indian woman from Muktsar city in Punjab, who has been floundering above 7,000 m on the mountain for the last five days.

According to Chessell, Sukhi arrived in Kathmandu with nothing except the money for the expedition. Moved by her determination, Jamie McGuinness, the expedition manager and an Everester himself, provided half of her gear. As the team headed towards the peak around May 27, it became clear Sukhi was not going to make it to the top.

Yet she is refusing to come down, apparently for fear of her family's anger.

Sukhi had teamed up with Project Himalaya, a 14-member international expedition to summit the 8,848 m peak in March-April. Little is known about her except that she raised part of the money with the help of a support team and her family.

In frantic appeals posted on the expedition's web site, Chessell has been urging Sukhi's family to let her come down.

In a dispatch Tuesday titled "Kamikaze - Indian Woman Sukhi vows 'Summit or Death'", Chessell wrote: "She is totally out of her depth - not sufficient climbing experience to summit, no stamina, no speed, no skills, no balance, SHE IS THE WORST CLIMBER ON THE MOUNTAIN."

A furious Chessell, who had to abandon his climb due to bronchitis, wrote from the advanced base camp at 6,600 m: "This is a dispatch that shouldn't have been posted."

"But Sukhi has not given us any phone numbers or contact details, so this is in the ugly public forum."

"She now realises she can't make it any higher, she has tried to move above 7,700 m twice on the rock ridge, but each time she crawls about 50 m with her Sherpa, then back again over about two hours like the most pathetic climber ever."

On Wednesday, Sukhi reportedly rang up her family, asking if she could come down.

In answer, Chessell says, Sukhi's sister called up the group's trekking agent, saying they would pay more if Sukhi was taken upward as "it is very important for her family's prestige".

"You told her to push up - this is wrong, the situation is critical: life and death," Chessell has warned the Indian's sister.

"You and you father have been totally irresponsible in pushing her on like this. Sukhi is in such a mentally controlled state by your family that she cannot reason any longer. You do not care about her, only about your family name, which is going to be put into the newspapers of India as to how you killed your daughter any day now."

On Tuesday, when the team was told they had two chances to make a push for the top, Sukhi refused to budge, saying, "I will never come down without climbing the summit; if I die I will be at peace with my gods."

At the last count, the Sherpas have been sent up to her with batteries for the satellite phone, so that she can call up her family once last time and ask for permission to come back.

Chessell said in the over 35 expeditions he has led so far, he has never seen anything like this.

"It is a cultural fatalism that I don't understand," he said.