Earthquake (7.8 or 7.9) devastates Nepal. I have made a blog from various mountaineering websites

http://cys-hiking-adventures.blogspot.c ... -live.html

On explorersweb -- http://www.explorersweb.com/everest_k2/ ... _142994596

Hi
does anyone have information about anapurna region?tomorrow i am supposed to fly to katmandu and take a bus to pokhara.
exactly where the earthquake is. is it possible to travel, how is the anapurna region?
anything information wellcome
Dessy

Latest updates by the Guardian in the UK --

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/a ... earthquake

Also check updates on http://altitudepakistan.blogspot.com which are also on explorersweb

http://www.explorersweb.com/everest_k2/ ... 1430071294

http://cys-hiking-adventures.blogspot.c ... erest.html

Help by mapping :

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2015 ... earthquake

(edit)

Image below per blog link:

http://altitudepakistan.blogspot.com/20 ... anche.html



As per details coming from Base Camp, the earthquake triggered a huge ice block to break away from the saddle between Pumori and Lingtren - around 800m meters above the tents. This avalanche wreck havocs on upper section of Base Camp, blowing away several tents. Lower portion of Base Camp remained safe. There were avalanches from other peaks as well, but without any significant damage.

“The tons and tons of falling ice going this vertical distance [800m] created a huge aerosol avalanche and accompanying air blast that hit the upper part of Everest BC and blew many tents across the Khumbu Glacier towards the lower Icefall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JC_wIWUC2U

The following video shows the beginning of the base camp avalanche within maybe 15 seconds of the earthquake and lasts 110 seconds with the avalanche still quite a ways off. At that point suspect the camera person began to worry that it would reach base camp thus turning it off. From crude maps of the Khumbo Glacier with Base Camp, it appears the avalanche had to travel about 2 kilometers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXElzyjwnsg

Speculating, it appears those at Base Camp felt the earthquake but maybe did not immediately feel threatened by the avalanche cloud in the distance and only when it got closer did some maybe run or take cover. Sort of the same human behavior like the Indonesian tidal wave videos of that hitting the Thailand coast where for awhile lots of onlookers just watch even while noticing a few early leaving the beach. And per snippet below, the part that hit the base camp was more a heavy wind air blast maelstrom consisting of smaller fragments of snow and rock that remained airborne due to the force of the wind and not solid flows of snow and rock. The same kind of blast that flattened areas miles away from Mt St Helens and are common with pyroclastic flow events that can go a long ways beyond where the main solid rocks lands because the air becomes heavy with debris. A few years ago this kind of phenomenon though smaller occurred above Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley when a large rock slab dropped thousands of feet then pulverized on impact.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/a ... ed-by-bomb

snippet:

He was just below base camp at the time and arrived where his camp had been to find a scene of utter devastation. “It looked [like] somebody had put a bomb in the middle of it. A huge area had just been completely wiped out. The large structures – the dining tent and so on – had just been completely flattened and stuff had been thrown hundreds of meters away.”

It wasn’t the kind of avalanche “that you’ve seen pictures of in the Alps”, he said. “It wasn’t the fluffy kind of white-powder avalanche. It was a shattered ice cliff with massive blocks of ice and rock that swept through the center of base camp.

An interesting read:

The coverage of this earthquake, however, has made me a little uneasy. Why has so much attention been paid to the situation on Mt. Everest, where at least 24 people have died, compared to the rest of Nepal, where the death toll is steadily climbing above 4,000?

Helicopters are limited resources, and they could come in handy in search and rescue operations elsewhere in Nepal. Dr. Prince Matthew, who works with Doctors Without Borders, has pleaded on Twitter for additional SAR help in Langtang, which is near Everest, and has been completely buried.

- Source

On one hand aid is given to those who help out the economy of Nepal. However if that truly is the case, it proves once again that the world focuses on people who are assets instead of creating the greatest good for the greatest number of people. I'm not saying that those people on Everest shouldn't have been rescued. I know I've appreciated hero's who have helped me out. I know for a fact that if I'm in a survival situation I would want as many people rescued as possible, even if that means the possibility of being left behind.

Abandoned my climb, area is a mess. These people need our prayers.

ScottyP wrote:Abandoned my climb, area is a mess. These people need our prayers.

I saw that you were OK Scott, glad to hear that!

España envía a Nepal un equipo de rescate con 59 militares y agentes: http://politica.elpais.com/politica/201 ... 21357.html

I was in namche bazar on 25th May 2015 with my group n we all were planning to go the market as it was our acclimatization day, all of sudden our lodge hotel kamal started shaking n we were on second floor , it put our heart in our mouth, the time taken to come out was terrible ,we all ran away towords forest and stayed in tent organised by local police. it was raining that day n we all were shivering. when we were in our camp,again struck the other earthquake n seen how namche bazar building n huts were shaking n thundring sound from the rocking boulders, it was horrible n first time in my life seen death so closer