Being caught in an avalanche is not something anyone would like to experience, however being caught in an avalanche on the highest mountain in the world is beyond terrifying. On 25th April, 2015, Wanaka based Kiwi, and General Manager of Adventure Consultants, Suze Kelly, was in Camp 1 when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook the mountain killing 9000 people in Nepal and causing a huge avalanche that ran straight through base camp. The avalanche claimed the lives of at least 22 people.
Suze takes up the story...
We had climbed up to Camp 1 from Basecamp for the first time on the expedition, arriving the day before. It wasn’t my first time going up into the Western Cwm as I’d been on Lhotse in 2013 but for most of our team it was their first time. We had decided not to go for an acclimatisation hike that morning from Camp 1 towards Camp 2 as everyone was pretty tired from the efforts getting to Camp 1 the day prior, so we were in our tents under low cloud.
I’m sure I felt the fault line ‘slip’, as the ground moved sideways over a metre in our tent with a huge glacial sized creaking sound, before all the real shaking started. Camp 1 is not the place you want to be when an earthquake happens as it is exposed to falling serac avalanche hazard from very high up on the mountain walls that loom above. When the shaking stopped Guy and I remarked ’that’s gotta be a big one’ and quickly started pulling on layers of clothes and boots. He made it out of tent in time to yell ’avalanche’ to everyone else as he could see an avalanche coming but the air blast wasn’t too bad, and we could soon all emerge from our tents.
During the shaking I had been able to speak on the radio to Anthea, our Base Camp Manager, where she had asked if we were OK and I said, ‘its rocking and rolling up here’. After about 10 minutes Anthea called again, and she said ‘Basecamp has been obliterated, I expect mass casualties’. We didn’t’ hear from her again that day as her radio stopped working and it took all of her effort to perform triage at Basecamp with our 20 staff based there.
This story is from the April - May 2019 edition of Adventure Magazine.
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This story is from the April - May 2019 edition of Adventure Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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