NEWS MONDAY, APRIL 27, 2015 Choppers rescue Everest avalanche victims MOUNT EVEREST, Nepal: Helicopters airlifted injured Many had travelled to Nepal for the start of the annu- climbers off Mount Everest yesterday after an avalanche al climbing season, which was cancelled last year after killed at least 18 people, an AFP team at the scene 16 sherpa guides were killed in what was previously the reported, even as a powerful aftershock hit the world’s deadliest disaster in the mountain’s history. Alex Gavan, highest peak. At least six helicopters landed at base a Romanian climber, said on Twitter “all badly injured camp in Nepal, the agency’s Kathmandu bureau chief heli evacuated”. Ropes, ice screws and snow pickets Ammu Kannampilly reported after weather conditions were being flown to a large number of climbers trapped improved overnight. “People being stretchered out as above the treacherous Khumbu icefall which was the choppers land - half a dozen this morning,” Kannampilly scene of last year’s disaster, he added. Snowfalls on said in a text message. “Weather clear, some snowfall.” Saturday had thwarted efforts to airlift survivors before Pictures taken by AFP’s South Asia photo chief the skies cleared on Sunday morning. Roberto Schmidt showed an enormous cloud of snow Google executive Dan Fredinburg was among the and debris cascading down the mountain as survivors handful of victims to have been identified so far. He was recalled the horrifying moment that disaster struck on with several colleagues who survived the tragedy, Saturday. “I ran and it just flattened me. I tried to get up Lawrence You, director of privacy at Google, said in a and it flattened me again,” Singapore-based marine blog post. You said Google.org was contributing $1 mil- biologist George Foulsham told AFP at base camp. “I lion to the response efforts. couldn’t breathe, I thought I was dead. When I finally US-based Madison Mountaineering said its doctor stood up, I couldn’t believe it passed me over and I was Marisa Eve Girawong had died in the avalanche. “Eve almost untouched.” perished in the aftermath of the avalanche that struck A spokesman for Nepal’s tourism department, the base camp area following the devastating Nepal which issues the permits to climb Everest, said the earthquake earlier today,” the company said in a state- An injured person is loaded onto a rescue helicopter at Everest Base Camp yesterday, a day after an ava- death toll had risen to 18 with more than 60 injured. ment. The earthquake dislodged a “huge block of ice” lanche triggered by an earthquake devastated the camp. The bodies of those who perished lie under orange “Deaths at the base camp have reached 18,” Tulsi above base camp on Saturday which sparked a “huge tents. — AFP Gautam told AFP. “Those who are able are walking aerosol avalanche” that slammed into the upper section down. Others are being airlifted to Pheriche.” Ang of base camp, blowing tents across the mountain, Aftershocks rock Nepal as quake toll tops... Tshering Sherpa, president of the Nepal mountaineer- another team said on its website, adding that its ing association, said the nationalities of those killed was climbers were uninjured. Continued from Page 1 with fractured and bloody limbs, who lay inside tents unclear, “but most of them would be foreigners”. Kanchaman Tamang, a Nepali cook who was work- made from hospital sheets. “We only have one opera- Sherpa said there were more than 800 people at dif- ing for the Jagged Globe tour group, said the latest exactly a year after an avalanche killed 16 sherpa tion theatre here. To be able to provide immediate ferent places when the avalanche, triggered by a mas- tragedy was particularly painful coming so soon after guides, forcing the season to be cancelled, and as treatment we require 15 theatres. I am just not able to sive earthquake, struck on Saturday lunchtime. Fearful last year’s deaths. “I was in the dining tent when the around 800 mountaineers were gathered at the start of cope,” said Dipendra Pandey, an orthopaedic surgeon, climbers again reported smaller avalanches on the avalanche hit - it sent the tent flying,” he told AFP. “After the new season. AFP’s Nepal bureau chief Ammu adding he had done 36 critical operations since mountain, at camp one above base camp, yesterday last year’s avalanche, I never worried about coming Kannampilly, who was on assignment at base camp, Saturday. Relief agencies and officials said most hospi- after a 6.7-magnitude aftershock hit Nepal around back - I told my family I work at base camp and it’s safe, reported that six helicopters had managed to reach the tals were overflowing and short on medical supplies. lunchtime. “Aftershock @ 1pm! Horrible here in camp 1. not like icefall. The season is over - the route has been mountain on Sunday after the weather improved. “Both private and government hospitals have run out of Avalanches on 3 sides. C1 a tiny island. We worry about destroyed, icefall ladders broken. I don’t think I will A stunning image captured by the agency’s South space and are treating patients outside, in the open,” icefall team below.. Alive?” UK-based climber Daniel come back next year - this mountain means too much Asia photo chief Roberto Schmidt showed a massive said Nepal’s envoy to India, Deep Kumar Upadhyay. Mazur tweeted. pain.” — Agencies cloud of snow and debris cascading onto base camp, At another hospital in Kathmandu, police officer burying scores of climbers and flattening tents. “People Sudan Shreshtha said his team had brought 166 corpses being stretchered out as choppers land - half a dozen overnight. “I am tired and exhausted, but I have to work this morning,” Kannampilly said in a text message. and have the strength,” Shreshtha told Reuters as an “Weather clear, some snowfall.” ambulance brought three more victims to the Offers of help poured in from around the world, with Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital. Bodies, includ- dozens of nations or aid groups volunteering every- ing that of a boy aged about seven, were heaped in a thing from sniffer dogs to an inflatable hospital. India dark room. The stench of death was overpowering. dispatched 13 military aircraft to Nepal loaded with Outside, a 30-year-old woman who had been widowed tonnes of food, blankets and other aid. The Kathmandu- wailed: “Oh Lord, why did you take him alone? Take me based National Emergency Operation Centre put the along with him.” toll in Nepal at 2,430 while around 6,000 more people Some buildings in Kathmandu toppled like houses of had been injured. Officials in India said the toll there cards, others leaned at precarious angles, and partial now stood at 67, while Chinese state media said 18 peo- collapses exposed living rooms and furniture in place ple had been killed in the Tibet region. and belongings stacked on shelves. People wandered “We have deployed all our resources for search and the streets clutching bed rolls and blankets, while oth- rescues,” police spokesman Kamal Singh Bam told AFP. ers sat in the street cradling their children, surrounded “Helicopters have been sent to remote areas. We are by a few plastic bags of belongings. Rescuers, some sifting through the rubble where buildings have col- wearing face masks to keep out the dust, scrambled lapsed to see if we can find anyone.” The fresh after- over mounds of splintered timber and broken bricks in shocks forced Kathmandu airport to close for around an the hope of finding survivors. hour as air traffic controllers evacuated their centre. The first mass cremations were held at the Several flights had to be diverted in mid-air. The coun- Pashupatinath district of Kathmandu, with the smoke try’s cellphone network was working only sporadically, from the funeral pyres wafting across a swathe of the city. while large parts of the capital were without electricity. Samir Acharya, a doctor at Nepal’s Annapurna AFP correspondents in Kathmandu reported that Neurological Hospital, said medics were working out of a tremors were felt throughout the day, including one tent set up in a parking lot to cope with the injured, while strong aftershock at dawn before the 6.7-magnitude some patients were too scared to stay in the building. follow-up quake that struck in the afternoon. The his- Experienced mountaineers said panic erupted on toric nine-storey Dharahara tower, a major tourist Saturday at Everest base camp, which has been severely attraction, was among the buildings brought down in damaged, while one described the avalanche as “huge”. BHAKTAPUR, Nepal: A dead body of a woman is seen after rescue workers recovered it yesterday from Kathmandu Saturday. Police said around 150 people “We have airlifted 52 from the base camp so far, 35 have debris near Kathmandu following Saturday’s earthquake. — AP were thought to have been in the tower at the time of been brought to Kathmandu,” said Tulsi Gautam of the disaster, based on ticket sales. “At least 30 dead bod- Nepal’s tourism department which issues permits to ies have been pulled out. We don’t have a number on climb the world’s highest mountain. “Those who are Nafisi acquitted, Saudi embassy sues MP... the rescued but over 20 injured were helped out,” able are walking down. Others are being airlifted.” Bishwa Raj Pokharel, a local police official, told AFP. “We George Foulsham, a Singapore-based marine biolo- Continued from Page 1 Awdah said the proposed amendments aim to ensure haven’t finished our work there, rescue work is still con- gist, described the moment disaster struck. “I was out- more freedom for the media in the country. The first day tinuing. Right now, we are not in a position to estimate side, saw a white 50-storey building of white come at with a television station owned by Lebanese Shiite will be devoted to the electronic media draft law which how many might be trapped.” me. I ran and it just flattened me,” he told AFP. “I tried to militia Hezbollah. This is the second case filed by the consists of 27 articles and aims to regulate online media. As rescuers sifted through the huge mounds of rub- get up and it flattened me again. I couldn’t breathe, I Saudi Arabian mission against Dashti, who was accused Experts will discuss on the second and third days pro- ble in the capital, some using bare hands, hospitals thought I was dead. When I finally stood up, I couldn’t in the first case of insulting the kingdom and the Saudi posed amendments to the two existing media laws, were overwhelmed with victims who suffered multiple believe it passed me over and I was almost untouched. I monarch. During the television interview, Dashti strongly Awdah said. fractures and trauma. Morgues were overflowing with saved for years to climb Everest. It feels like the moun- lashed out at the Saudi-led Gulf airstrikes against the But MP Faisal Al-Duwaisan strongly criticized the bodies. At the city’s oldest Bir Hospital, an AFP corre- tain is saying it’s not meant to be climbed for now.” Shiite Houthi militia in Yemen. Assembly’s educational committee for ignoring amend- spondent saw grieving relatives trying to swat away Nepal and the rest of the Himalayas are particularly In another development, the Assembly will launch ments he had proposed to the media laws, saying that the flies from around a dozen bodies placed on the floor of prone to earthquakes because of the collision of the today a three-day debate on the proposed amendments committee took the government proposals only. He said the morgue after storage space ran out. Indian and Eurasia plates. A 6.8 magnitude quake hit to the press and publications and the audiovisual laws, the committee wants to provide legal cover to the govern- Outside the National Trauma Centre in Kathmandu, eastern Nepal in August 1988 killing 721 people, and a besides the new draft electronic media law. Head of the ment’s amendments, claiming that it has committed a patients in wheelchairs who had been under treatment magnitude 8.1 quake killed 10,700 people in Nepal and educational committee in the Assembly Awdah Al- constitutional violation by not including his proposals. before the earthquake hit joined hundreds of injured India in 1934. — Agencies