GERMAN CLIMBER JOST Kobusch has posted a clip of the moment a massive avalanche struck Everest base camp on Saturday.
The video shows climbers at the busy Himalayas camp observing that the “ground is shaking” – before realising, with shouts of “f*ck” that a huge cloud of snow and ice is descending from the mountain.
Saturday’s avalanche, caused by a massive earthquake in Nepal, buried part of base camp and killed at least 18 people.
Aftershocks set off fresh avalanches on the mountain yesterday, even as helicopters evacuated some of those worst injured the day before.
Hundreds of mountaineers had gathered at Everest at the start of the annual climbing season, and the real scale of the disaster there has been impossible to evaluate with communications all but cut off.
At least two Americans died in the avalanche – a doctor working for a mountain guide company and a Google executive, their organisations said. Japan’s foreign ministry said that at least “one (Japanese) man in his 50s” was killed in the avalanche.
Irish climbers who had been in the area have been posting on social media and contacting home by phone to let people know they are safe.
Includes reporting from AFP.
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