Nepal mountaineering accident claims 39

waltky · Oct 19, 2014

Death toll in Nepal trekking disaster reaches 39...

Nepal Annapurna: Trekking disaster toll reaches 39
18 October 2014 ~ Snowstorms and avalanches have killed 39 trekkers on a popular hiking route in the Himalayas, Nepali officials say.

After a fourth day of searches, 384 people have been rescued from the Annapurna trail, 216 of them foreigners, in the country's worst-ever trekking disaster. Helicopters have been searching parts of the trail high as 5,790m (19,000ft) for survivors. The government said the priority was to rescue 22 stranded hikers. The trekkers are stranded at Thorung La pass, and face a shortage of food and water. Army helicopters tried to rescue them but failed after being unable to land. The BBC's Andrew North in Nepal says that it is still unclear which climbers have been accounted for and which are still missing. The task of the authorities is made more complicated because there are thousands of climbers in Nepal at this time of the year.

Severe frostbite

Army helicopters tried unsuccessfully to rescue them on Saturday between the Mustang and Dolpa districts, government rescue coordinator Suresh Acharya said. Twenty bodies have been recovered but 19 bodies are still in the snow and a rescue team will be deployed on Sunday to dig them out and retrieve them by air, he said. One of the main trekking routes - the Thorung La pass, the high point of the Annapurna Circuit - is now "relatively safe" after the army cleared snow, he said earlier.

An injured trekker from Israel on a bus to Kathmandu

Rescuers have only limited resources and most of the missing and dead are believed to be at the maximum heights that helicopters can reach. Nepalese, Japanese, Israeli, Canadian, Indian, Slovak, Vietnamese and Polish trekkers are said to be among the dead. Many survivors have been left with severe frostbite and will have to have limbs amputated. Nepal earns huge revenues from the tens of thousands of trekkers and climbers who flock to the Himalayas every year.

However, it remains a very poor country and the authorities here have struggled to cope with the scale of this disaster, our correspondent says. This has been a particularly deadly year for Nepal's trekking and mountaineering industry. An avalanche on Mount Everest in April killed 16 Sherpa guides and resulted in a significant drop in the number of expeditions to the world's highest peak. The latest disaster comes at the height of the trekking period.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29672358
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waltky · Apr 25, 2015

Deadly Everest 7.9 earthquake kills 1,400 in Nepal...

Nepal quake: Nearly 1,400 dead, Everest shaken
25 Apr.`15 Tens of thousands of people were spending the night in the open under a chilly and thunderous sky after a powerful earthquake devastated Nepal on Saturday, killing nearly 1,400, collapsing modern houses and ancient temples and triggering a landslide on Mount Everest. Officials warned the death toll would rise as more reports came in from far-flung areas.

Inspector Yuvraj Khadka of Nepal's national police force said that rescue effort was continuing through the night and the death toll had reached 1,394 people. The magnitude 7.8 earthquake, which originated outside the capital Kathmandu, was the worst tremor to hit the poor South Asian nation in over 80 years. It strong enough to be felt all across the northern part of neighboring India, Bangladesh, Tibet and Pakistan, where a total of 50 people died.

As Nepal trembled, residents fled homes and buildings in panic. Walls tumbled, trees swayed, power lines came crashing down and large cracks opened up on streets and walls. Clouds of dust began to swirl all around.

Within hours of the quake, hospitals had filled up with hundreds of injured people. With organized relief and rescue lacking, many survivors were brought to hospitals by friends and relatives in motorized rickshaws, flatbed trucks and cars. Residents used their bare hands, crowbars and other tools to dig through rubble and rescue survivors.

More than two dozen aftershocks jolted the area after the first quake, which struck just before noon. At the time, Shrish Vaidya, who runs an advertising agency, was in his two-story house outside the capital Kathmandu with his parents. "It is hard to describe. The house was shaking like crazy. We ran out and it seemed like the road was heaving up and down," Vaidya, 46, told The Associated Press. "I don't remember anything like this before. Even my parents can't remember anything this bad."

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Deckel · Apr 26, 2015

The Everest base camp was destroyed. Photos at http://indianexpress.com/photos/pic...ggers-avalanche-everest-base-camps-destroyed/

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Nepal mountaineering accident claims 39

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