The Nepalese consider Mount Everest sacred, and do not want it to become a graveyard. Many parents of those who have perished have asked for the bodies to be left as they were when they died, but this is against Nepalese law. As soon as a body can be reached for retrieval, it is and then is brought down for identification and burial. Those too high for retrieval will have stone tombs (called cairns) constructed around the corpses to shield them from the elements and the view of other climbers. A few corpses located on shallow ledges were rolled off to be buried in the snow below, away from the trail.
Is it not regulated as to how many people can be on the Mountain at once? I imagine you need a govt permit and that such a permit isn't cheap, right? I know we had to purchase one to hike to Machu Picchu and they only issued a certain number of them.