Narratives from Nepal: Relief and rebuilding after the Gorkha Earthquake
by Lucas Joel
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
People at base camp on Everest — shown here during an avalanche in 2013 — felt the shaking of the April 25 Gorkha quake, which was followed by an enormous avalanche that killed 19 people. Credit: Deana Zabaldo, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Base Camp, Mount Everest, April 25, 2015, about noon: A tremendous boom echoes through the air, the ground heaves and a wall-like cloud of snow propelled by an avalanche advances toward the tents. Mountaineers scatter, diving into tents to avoid the blast. One mountaineer has a video camera and captures the whole thing, as he curses and dives into a tent while the cloud of snow engulfs him. He survives, but 19 others perish. This firsthand account of the Gorkha quake is now famous, caught on camera and posted to YouTube.