Nepal Megathread

[jimmy olsen]

Tragic.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/nepal-earthquake-magnitude-7-9-tremor-hits-kathmandu-n348236

A powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal on Saturday, killing hundreds, destroying homes and ancient temples, and triggering at least one avalanche on Mount Everest.

A police official said 449 people have been confirmed dead in Nepal, The Associated Press reported. Some 30 died in neighboring countries where the quake was felt, including 20 in India, AP added.

Reuters reported that 688 people had died, quoting a senior home ministry source. There was no explanation for the different estimates and NBC News was not able to immediately confirm the death toll.

Climbers on Mount Everest were sent running for their lives when the earthquake set off at least one avalanche. At least eight people died and more than two dozen were injured in the avalanche on the world's highest mountain, according to The Associated Press. Below, climbers and mountaineers describe the horrific events.

"A massive earthquake just hit Everest. Basecamp has been severely damaged. Our team is caught in camp 1. Please pray for everyone," mountaineer Daniel Mazur tweeted hours after the quake.

Alex Gavan
‏@AlexGAVAN

Everest base camp huge earthquaqe then huge avalanche from pumori.Running for life from my tent. Unhurt. Many many people up the mountain.

There was little information coming from the outlying areas of the mountainous country and helicopters were circling overheard to get a better sense of the damage.

"We are totally cut off from most parts of our country," Ram Narayan Pandey of the Nepal Disaster Management Authority said according to Reuters.

Shristi Mainali described the terrifying moment the earthquake hit Kathmandu just before noon local time (2:15 a.m. ET).

"It was a sound like thunder," the 21-year-old nursing student told NBC News. "It lasted for more than a minute... it was really shaking shaking shaking."

Residents in her neighborhood in Kathmandu had fled their homes after the initial earthquake and a series of strong aftershocks, Mainali said.

"They are terrified that the aftershocks may come again," she said. "We are staying away from big walls, sitting in the middle of the road."

Many buildings were destroyed in the center Old Kathmandu, including ancient temples and towers, resident Prachanda Sual told The Associated Press. The old part of Kathmandu city is a densely packed warren of lanes with poorly built homes crowded closely together.

In China, hundreds of soldiers belonging to the Shigatse military garrison rushed to the border to help with the rescue, according to Chinese Liberation Daily.

The U.S.G.S. revised up the size of the earthquake, which was felt in neighboring India and Pakistan, from an initial 7.5-magnitude estimate.
— F. Brinley Bruton with The Associated Press and Reuters.
First published April 25th 2015, 4:00 pm

[jimmy olsen]

It must be a nightmare for those trapped on Everest. They're doomed and they'll probably descend into canabalism before they freeze to death.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/nepal-earthquake-rescuers-hunt-for-survivors-as-death-toll-rises-1430032637

By
Jesse Pesta And Niharika Mandhana
Updated April 26, 2015 1:48 p.m. ET

 
KATMANDU, Nepal—Residents of the earthquake-hit Nepalese capital huddled in the dark beneath plastic tarps in streets and parks Sunday night, after a day in which soldiers and police dug, often by hand, in the rubble of collapsed buildings to rescue survivors.

More than 2,400 people were confirmed dead after Saturday's 7.8-magnitude quake, which devastated a broad swath of the Himalayan nation, severely damaging the historic heart of Katmandu, flattening remote villages and triggering an avalanche on Mount Everest.

"It's a very desperate situation," a spokesman for Nepal's national police, Kamal Singh Bam, said Sunday. "The death toll is very high and it will go up even more. Rescue operations are slow because we don't have all the proper facilities."

The scale of the disaster poses a major challenge for the government of Nepal, one of the world's poorest and least-developed countries. It also delivered a significant blow to the small nation's already slow-growing economy.

"It will take many months just to get back to normalcy," said Krishna Prasad Dhakal, deputy chief of mission at Nepal's embassy in New Delhi.

A large, 6.7-magnitude aftershock—strong enough to shake buildings 700 miles away in the Indian capital, New Delhi—hit Sunday afternoon, sowing panic and causing more destruction and injury, police and witnesses said.

Fear of further temblors kept many people outdoors in Katmandu and the surrounding valley, home to more than 2.5 million people, despite rain Sunday night.

Dozens of patients slept in makeshift tents pitched in front of the Om Hospital and Research Centre in Katmandu. "I wanted to come out here because we feared the quake would repeat," said Hyat Mohammad, who suffered a broken hip.

Others camped out on the hospital porch or bedded down on the floor of the entrance hall. A family was wrapped in a pink-and-purple blanket emblazoned with the words "Best Wishes." One woman had broken both her legs when her stone house collapsed on top of her.

By Sunday night, the official police death toll stood at 2,482, but officials said they expected it to rise as search teams reached more-remote areas. More than 6,100 people were injured.

Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations resident coordinator in Nepal, said local hospitals were overstretched and in need of medical supplies. There are "very challenging scenes right now as we try to determine rescue efforts," he said.

Hundreds of Indian soldiers and disaster-response personnel flew into Nepal over the weekend to help, bringing with them field hospitals, relief supplies, excavators and other equipment. A Chinese search-and-rescue team also arrived.

But progress was hard to gauge, given the scope of the damage, the police spokesman, Mr. Bam, said. On Sunday, Nepalese army and police teams focused on the Katmandu Valley, and it could be days before rescue specialists reached remote and mountainous areas, he said.

Uddav Timilsina, chief district officer of Gorkha, near the quake's epicenter, said Sunday that thousands of homes were destroyed and 80% of schools razed. He said 500 police and soldiers were hunting for survivors and recovering bodies of the dead.

"We are getting reports that 10 people are missing here, 50 people are missing there," Mr. Timilsina said. "But it is very, very difficult to say what is actually the situation on the ground."

He said large parts of his district, particularly those in remote and mountainous areas, remained cut off. Landslides, which Mr. Timilsina said continued Sunday morning, blocked roads and endangered rescue teams.

"Phone lines are down, there is no access, we don't have any data from there right now," he said.

The quakes triggered an avalanche that killed 17 people and injured more than 60 on Mount Everest. International mountaineers and local guides were at a base camp on the mountain, preparing for ascents of the world's highest peak.

Authorities in neighboring India said more than 60 people had died there as a result of the quake. Across the border in China, 18 died, according to government news agency Xinhua. Four Chinese nationals were among the dead in Nepal, Xinhua said.

On Saturday, Sushil Chaudhari, a 42-year-old human-rights activist in Katmandu, said he watched in horror as the nine-story Dharahara tower in Katmandu's center collapsed with his wife's 16-year-old nephew, who had just finished high-school exams, inside.

When the quake hit, "there was no time to think or react. It just fell, just like that," Mr. Chaudhari said. "I was paralyzed, people were screaming. I saw people die right in front of my eyes." Mr. Chaudhari found his young relative's body buried under broken bits of the tower.

Historic neighborhoods of Nepal's capital were among the most damaged parts of the city, as some of the country's oldest buildings crumbled, leaving piles of old bricks.

Katmandu and its suburbs are full of centuries-old historical sites, including temples, palaces and courtyards, many of them more than 300 years old. Seven areas of the Katmandu Valley are protected as a Unesco World Heritage site.

The U.S. Geological Survey revised the magnitude of the initial quake to 7.8 from an earlier estimate of 7.9 on Saturday. The epicenter was about 50 miles northwest of Katmandu.

The quake struck in what is known as the Indus-Yarlung suture zone, where the Indian subcontinent meets the Eurasian tectonic plate. The collision of the two, 40 million to 50 million years ago, gave rise to the Himalayas.

It is an area that has been the site of some of the region's deadliest earthquakes, including one in Kashmir in 2005 that killed more than 80,000 people. A massive earthquake also struck Nepal in 1934, causing mass casualties.

Besides China and India, other Asian countries, including Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, are sending search-and-rescue teams to Nepal. South Korea offered $1 million in emergency relief aid, while Taiwan pledged $300,000.

Meanwhile, Nepalese living abroad tried frantically to get in touch with family back home. Veerman Tamang, a 28-year-old who works in a Delhi restaurant said he was preparing to head back to his home village in Nepal by bus, a trip that under normal conditions takes 36 hours. Mr. Tamang and his wife, Pooja, said they managed to reach a relative by phone briefly after Saturday's quake. He said his father had been pulled from the rubble with injuries to his head and arm. "I wasn't able to speak to my mother. I want to make sure she is alive," Mr. Tamang said.

—Raymond Zhong,
Krishna Pokharel,
and Suryatapa Bhattacharya
contributed to this article.


 

[alfred russel]

It must be a nightmare for those trapped on Everest. They're doomed and they'll probably descend into canabalism before they freeze to death.

Is Tim trying to be funny?

I'm confused. The people above base camp on everest will have the gear to deal with the cold and they won't be more than a day or two at most away from base camp. Base camp is an easy hike to a village a couple hours away with lodging and restaurants.

[grumbler]

It must be a nightmare for those trapped on Everest. They're doomed and they'll probably descend into canabalism before they freeze to death.

Is Tim trying to be funny?

I'm confused. The people above base camp on everest will have the gear to deal with the cold and they won't be more than a day or two at most away from base camp. Base camp is an easy hike to a village a couple hours away with lodging and restaurants.

Yeah, that joke is definitely too soon.  I dread going to school tomorrow and hearing about deaths among the relatives of the three Nepalese families I know.

[Eddie Teach]

This joke may have failed, but Tim is still funnier than Jeff Ross.

[Razgovory]

Nah, Jokes are funny.  That's how you know Tim is never joking, he's never funny.

[jimmy olsen]

It must be a nightmare for those trapped on Everest. They're doomed and they'll probably descend into canabalism before they freeze to death.

Is Tim trying to be funny?

I'm confused. The people above base camp on everest will have the gear to deal with the cold and they won't be more than a day or two at most away from base camp. Base camp is an easy hike to a village a couple hours away with lodging and restaurants.

They're trapped above the Khumbu icefall, and operating a helicopter at such altitudes is difficult in the best of time.

[alfred russel]

They're trapped above the Khumbu icefall, and operating a helicopter at such altitudes is difficult in the best of time.

The Khumba icefall isn't that high up, they should be able to stay almost indefinitely without freezing to death. It also isn't very difficult to pass through. Someone just needs to set a path with ropes and ladders.

The major risk is avalanches while they wait. Altitude sickness shouldn't be a problem because the icefall is barely above basecamp. Which of course helicopters are regularly in and out of.

[jimmy olsen]

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/climbers-trapped-on-mount-everest-are-getting-desperate/2015/04/26/68ec0765-9303-4aec-b7ec-f031cdae42fc_story.html

Climbers trapped on Mount Everest 'are getting desperate'

By Annie Gowen April 26 at 11:06 PM    


ITANAGAR, India — Helicopter teams began evacuating critically injured climbers at Mount Everest's base camp Sunday morning, but the effort came to an abrupt halt when a significant new aftershock triggered more avalanches and fears of additional casualties at the world's highest peak.

Dozens of climbers and Sherpas, their Nepali guides, remain trapped on the side of the mountain at two camps that sit above where the avalanche fell, climbers said in tweets and other social-media posts. Ropes and other equipment left in place to help them descend had been swept away in Saturday's avalanche.

Daniel Mazur, a climber trapped at Camp 1, tweeted Sunday "Aftershock @ 1 pm! Horrible here in camp 1 Avalanches on 3 sides. C1 [Camp 1] a tiny island. We worry about the icefall team below. Alive?"

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Col. Rohan Anand, a spokesman for the Indian army, which had a mountaineering team training on Everest at the time of the disaster, said the rescue effort also has been hampered by communications difficulties and weather. The aftershock occurred around 1 p.m. Nepal time Sunday and registered 6.7 on the Richter scale, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The army said that 19 people had died at the Everest base camp Saturday after an enormous sweep of ice, rocks and snow tumbled toward the camp in an avalanche triggered by Nepal's deadly earthquake, which has killed more than 3,200 in the country so far. The army had rescued 61 climbers, mostly foreign tourists.

The wind that accompanied the avalanche "completely pulverized and blew the camp away," American climber Jon Kedrowski, who was at the base camp, wrote on his blog Sunday. "Many of the injuries were similar to ones you might see in the Midwest when a tornado hits, with contusions and lacerations from flying debris. Head injuries, broken legs, internal injuries, impalements also happened to people. Some people were picked up and tossed across the glacier for a hundred yards."

He continued: "People in tents were wrapped up in them, lifted by the force of the blast and then slammed down onto rocks, glacial moraine and ice on the glacier."

Rescue helicopters had begun to land at the base camp — which is used by hundreds of climbers as the starting point for Everest ascents during peak climbing season — in the morning, after the weather cleared and the sun peeped through the clouds. This gave rescuers an opportunity to ferry about 50 of the most critically wounded — climbers and Sherpas — to safety.

Xinhua News Agency reported that more than 400 mountaineers on the north side of Mount Everest were safe, quoting the sports administration of Tibet. There was an avalanche near the north side of the North Col, but it didn't hit any of them.

But the continued seismic activities halted rescue operations.

A Danish climber, Carsten Lillelund Pedersen, wrote in a Facebook message exchange with The Washington Post that the injured have been evacuated but that the dead remain.

"It's very tragic, we have many climbers and Sherpas stuck higher up in camp 1 and 2. . . . And they are getting desperate," he wrote in the message.

Another climber, Alex Gavan, tweeted that base camp had grown quiet, taking on the look of an aftermath of a nuclear blast, with "great desolation" and "high uncertainty" among those who remained.

One section was especially hard hit, a Dutch climber named Eric Arnold wrote on his blog. "There was hardly anything left. I see very personal stuff, a log book, shampoo, slippers, reading glasses, everything."

The jittery survivors rushed out of the dining tent every time they felt a shock Sunday, Arnold wrote. "Fear has got the better of us."

At any point during peak climbing season, more than 1,500 people can inhabit Everest base camp, including climbers, Sherpa guides, porters and other staff, said Eric Johnson, a Montana emergency physician who sits on the board of Everest ER, which runs a clinic there. It's difficult to know how many climbers are trapped on the mountain — or how many may have perished during the avalanche near or in its perilous Khumbu icefall, Johnson said. Sixteen Sherpas were killed in an avalanche at Everest last year.

Dan Richards, the chief executive of the travel risk and crisis management firm Global Rescue in Boston, said that his company has about three dozen mountaineering clients who had been near or around Everest at the time of avalanche. Six are unaccounted for, and eight remained trapped on the mountain in the camps above where the avalanche started.

"They're up there. They're well supplied, and they're safe, but they're not able to descend," Richards said. His firm hopes to be able to rescue the trapped climbers via helicopter as soon as circumstances on the ground permit, he said.



Mrigakshi Shukla in New Delhi contributed to this report.

[Berkut]

Yeah, the immediate danger is another avalanche for those stuck above the icefall.

But getting back down could be a problem for some of them - climbing through the icefall without the ropes and ladders setup by the guides is more technically difficult than the everest climb itself, and there are likely plenty who could not do so safely.

But they aren't going to be up there Donner partying each other anytime soon - Camp 1 (which they can all climb down to) is low enough for near permanent habitation. Those who are already injured will be in trouble.

[jimmy olsen]

Over 3200 dead

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/nepal-earthquake/aid-arrives-nepal-after-devastating-earthquake-n348431

[alfred russel]

Yeah, the immediate danger is another avalanche for those stuck above the icefall.

But getting back down could be a problem for some of them - climbing through the icefall without the ropes and ladders setup by the guides is more technically difficult than the everest climb itself, and there are likely plenty who could not do so safely.

But they aren't going to be up there Donner partying each other anytime soon - Camp 1 (which they can all climb down to) is low enough for near permanent habitation. Those who are already injured will be in trouble.

I'd think those that were injured could be flown out without much trouble.

I'm not sure you can cross the icefall without ladders. If a crevasse is too large to jump, using a ladder is the standard way to cross. All the videos and stories of the icefall involve crossing crevasses with ladders, but I don't know whether that is because it is the only way to cross or because simply easier and safer to cross with ladders than to walk around the crevasses (safer because the longer you are in the icefall the more exposure you have to avalanches/collapses of snowbridges/other hazards).

[Berkut]

I suspect being IN the icefall when a aftershock hits, ladders or no ladders, would rather suck in a fatal way...

It is possible to helicopter into Camp 1, but it is dangerous itself - it is ride on the edge of where helicopters can really operate. Indeed, for a long time it was considered beyond that edge.

The other problem is simply resources. Nepal is almost certainly a mess right now - are the lives of those stuck on Everest more important than the lives of those NOT stuck on Everest? Maybe not even an issue.

[Caliga]

So when does the cannibalism start?

[alfred russel]

It is possible to helicopter into Camp 1, but it is dangerous itself - it is ridge on the edge of where helicopters can really operate. Indeed, for a long time it was considered beyond that edge.

It is definitely above the comfort zone for normal helicopter rescue, but there have been dramatic improvements in recent years. A rescue was recently successfully completed just below camp 4, and a helicopter has been landed on the summit of the mountain.

Piloting the high altitude rescues has turned into a sport not unlike climbing--and some of the top climbers double as rescue specialists. And just like in climbing, accidents aren't uncommon. Base camp is around 17,000 feet, Camp 1 is around 20,000 feet, the highest successful helicopter rescue on everest is around 25,000 feet.

I read an article not too long ago about this: the crash rate for the rescue helicopters pushing the limits is really off the charts. Even going into everest base camp there are crashes every so often. Though helicopters are available to take people down after visiting base camp, I've read recommendations to hike out just because of the crash risk.

The other problem is simply resources. Nepal is almost certainly a mess right now - are the lives of those stuck on Everest more important than the lives of those NOT stuck on Everest? Maybe not even an issue.

It seems a group of guys just need to go set a course through the icefall. But maybe basecamp is too much of a mess to send people to do that, or maybe with the aftershocks no one is keen to, or some combination.