Everest Shows Ferocity of Avalanche

It’s early Monday morning now in Nepal, a day and a half after the earthquake. Sunday—12 hours ago—dawned clear as rescuers had hoped. Helicopters began landing in Base Camp just after first light. I spoke briefly with Under Armour director of innovation Nick Cienski, who was climbing the mountain with HimEx and who is still in Base Camp after helping recover bodies and stretcher the injured to the makeshift medical facility at International Mountain Guides’ base. According to Cienski, 50 injured people were evacuated by helicopter, 21 of them in critical condition. There are 18 people confirmed dead, most of them Sherpas. By late afternoon the weather closed in again, and the rescue flights had to stop.
At this point, the upper portion of Base Camp looks like the natural disaster area that it is. Sleeping tents have been blown away, chairs and tables scattered across the moraine, and the tattered skeletons of mess tents stand stripped bare of their fabric by the hurricane-force winds that raced ahead of the avalanche.
According to an email from a New Zealand–based Adventure Consultants staffer, all patients were initially shuttled to Pheriche, at 14,000 feet, and then by a larger Russian cargo helicopter to Lukla or Kathmandu.
“We know our injured Sherpa are in both the Kathmandu Medical College and another clinic in Kathmandu,” wrote Adventure Consultants operations manager Caroline Blaikie. “We have also heard reports from our Mera Peak group of the Lukla hospital taking patients from Everest Base Camp.”

Cienski confirmed that the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA) took a direct hit and was completely wiped out. The HRA camp houses the legendary Icefall Doctors who set and maintain the route through the Khumbu Icefall. Three of the Icefall Doctors were killed, and more were injured. Since no thorough, camp-wide count has yet been conducted, the total number of dead and missing has not been firmly established. It’s still possible that there are climbers buried at Base Camp and in the Icefall. According to International Mountain Guides founder Eric Simonson, who is in contact with his team on the mountain, a helicopter pilot was scheduled to make a careful inspection of the route through the Icefall Sunday morning. A more accurate count of the missing should emerge within the next 12 hours.

The news that the Icefall Doctors are out of commission also makes the situation more tenuous for the climbers trapped in Camps I and II, who until now had planned to descend under their own power. I don’t have an exact count of who is above Base Camp, but the list includes groups from Alpine Ascents International (AAI), Madison Mountaineering, Adventure Consultants, International Mountain Guides, and Rainier Mountaineering. Madison has posted an accounting of the whereabouts of its climbers. Madison Mountaineering’s Base Camp manager Kurt Hunter estimated that the number of climbers above Base Camp was between 100 and 120. 

https://www.outsideonline.com/1972696/aftermath-everest