Hikers and their guides on Mount Everest had not fully recovered from the death, injuries and trauma of avalanches caused by Nepal’s massive magnitude 7.8 earthquake, when another one struck on Sunday.
It was not as powerful at magnitude 6.7, but the epicenter was closer to the mountain, where people are still missing, some believed to be buried in snow. The new quake sent down new avalanches of snow and rock.
On Saturday, hundreds of people were on Mount Everest when the long, powerful earthquake struck Nepal.
Among the most vulnerable were those at the base camp on the Nepalese side of the world’s highest mountain. The camp sits in a bowl surrounded by high Himalayan peaks.
“An earthquake that long set off avalanches all the way around us. And they came down — they were large, they were massive avalanches,” said Jon Reiter, an American mountaineer at the base camp.
The falling ice and snow took out large sections of the camp, where climbers gather to prepare to ascend Everest. A huge cloud of snow dust engulfed the hundreds of tents as some people ran for their lives.
“We all ducked for cover until the cloud passed and then started dealing with the aftermath,” Reiter said.
That included at least 17 people killed, dozens injured and many others missing, he said. They are part of the enormous human toll in Nepal and beyond from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Saturday.
Airlifts of injured begin
The many unhurt people at the camp scrambled to help the injured, digging them out of the snow and turning dining tents into makeshift field hospitals. Snow that continued to fall made it hard for them to see, hampering their efforts.
Climbers worked in shifts through the night, nursing the injured as they waited for the weather conditions to improve, allowing helicopters in.
“A lot of them are in pretty tough shape,” said Reiter.
The airlifts of those with the most severe injuries began Sunday morning after the weather cleared.
“The sun is breaking through the clouds, and the choppers are coming in,” Reiter said. “We’re pretty grateful. We’re going to get these guys down the hill.”
Google executive killed
But some didn’t survive the avalanches.
Among the dead was Dan Fredinburg, an American executive at Google who had been posting updates about his adventures in Nepal on Instagram and Twitter.
His sister, Megan, updated the Instagram account with a message, saying he suffered a major head injury.
“We appreciate all of the love that has been sent our way thus far and know his soul and his spirit will live on in so many of us,” she wrote. “All our love and thanks to those who shared this life with our favorite hilarious strong willed man. He was and is everything to us.”
Eve Girawong, a medic from New Jersey who worked on the mountain, was also killed, according to her family and employer.
“On behalf of my family, it is with deep sadness that I write that our beloved daughter, younger sister and best friend has been taken from us today,” a family member wrote on Facebook. “Nong Eve Girawong was doing the thing she loved doing most — helping others. Words cannot describe the heartbreak and pain that we are currently suffering.”
‘A pretty rough scene’
People at the base camp described a grim, chaotic situation after the avalanches.
“It’s a pretty rough scene up here,” Reiter said.
He told CNN that he’d put one dead man inside a sleeping bag and zipped it up.
Many of those who suffered the worst injuries were asked to write down their names to identify them in case they died, Reiter said.
The exact number of dead remained unclear. Reiter reported 17; Nima Namgyal, a doctor with an expedition at the base camp told CNN that he had seen 14 bodies so far.
But as yet an unquantified number of people are believed to still be missing.
Climbers stuck farther up mountain
There are also concerns about groups of climbers stuck farther up the 29,035-foot mountain in Camps 1 and 2.
The avalanche was reported to have trapped them above the icefall area, an already treacherous part of the mountain that separates the base camp from Camp 1.
“They’ll have to put a new route in from base camp up through that icefall,” said Jim Whittaker, the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
The climbers “will have to cool it for a couple days, way until the route is reestablished,” he told CNN. “They’ve got enough food and fuel for the stoves.”
Alex Gavan, a mountaineer at the base camp, said Sunday on Twitter that ropes and other gear were being helicoptered to the people trapped above the icefall.
A few of the climbers were taken down by helicopter, but more than 100 were believed to still be up there, he wrote.
‘Always a risk of death’
The earthquake and struck just over a year after an avalanche on Everest killed 16 Sherpas, the deadliest single disaster on the mountain up to that point.
The Sherpas are an ethnic group famed for their climbing skills who often work as mountain guides.
“This is our job,” said Pasang Sherpa, who lost people close to him in the 2014 avalanche. “So there is always a risk of death.”
Reiter was also there last year when that avalanche struck in the icefall. He described the harrowing experience of seeing bodies being removed to CNN at the time.
The American climber has scaled all of “The Seven Summits,” the highest mountain on each of the seven continents, except Everest. This is his third straight year trying to scale the tallest peak of them all. He turned back in 2013 “because it didn’t feel right,” according to his wife Susan.
Will Reiter try again after witnessing another disaster on the mountain?
“You would think that he wouldn’t because of this and because of last year,” Susan Reiter said from her Northern California home. “But knowing my husband I think he will. I hope not, but I don’t want to hold him back.”
