Quebec trekker tells of Nepal ‘nightmare’
Woman says she thought she’d die in avalanche
A Canadian survivor of the Nepal avalanche that killed at least 29 people has described a harrowing tale of being buried waist-high in thick, heavy snow on a “nightmare” of a day.
Quebecer Sonia Leveque said she thought she was going to die and that she and her fellow trekkers are fortunate to be alive.
“We fought for survival and we were lucky,” she said in an interview from Nepal with RDI, Radio-Canada’s all-news network.
“I think nobody in the group wanted to die.”
She said that Tuesday was a “nightmare” and that nobody in her small group saw the avalanche coming.
“It happened extremely quickly — within seconds, we were separated,” Leveque said.
“Three people in our group were swept away (and) we tried to find them but there was about 20 metres of snow accumulated at the bottom of the avalanche.”
The death toll in the tragedy was revised upward Thursday to 29, with four Canadians among the dead and others among the roughly 70 people missing.
Leveque said she and her fellow travellers remained shaken up on Thursday but will stay in Kathmandu for at least a few days to see how the rest of the rescue operation unfolds.
One of the men in her group lost his wife in the tragedy and Leveque said it was important to stay with him to give him support.
Three Quebec women were reported missing, including Genevieve Adam. Her father feared the worst as he travelled to Nepal while the search continued.
“He wants to be there with her,” said Francois Adam, the man’s brother. “It’s his little girl and he won’t leave her there.”
But Adam was not optimistic. “The last information did not give us a lot of hope,” he told RDI.
Adam said his niece was asleep in her tent with other trekkers at the time.
“What I know is that it happened at around four o’clock in the morning,” he said. “She was sleeping, (and) bang! it hit and passed over them and they were carried down along with the avalanche. It happened just like that.”
On Thursday, search teams in army helicopters rescued dozens of stranded foreign trekkers and recovered more bodies in mountains in the northern part of the country.
Two women from the Ottawa region who had been reported as missing managed to avoid the worst.
Virginia Schwartz posted on her Facebook page Thursday that she was leaving the hazardous region along with Jane Van Criekingen, her travel companion.
“Thank you to everyone for all the kind words and prayers, we are safe,” she wrote.
“We are trekking out of the avalanche danger zone and heading back down along the circuit.
“We are now in Manang on the lower side of the pass and hope to be in Pokhara in 3-4 days.”
Ganga Sagar Pant of the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal said the death toll was expected to rise.
The route, 160 kilometres northwest of Kathmandu, was filled with international hikers during the peak October trekking season, when the air is generally clear and cool. Many Nepalese were also on the trails because of local festivals.
Terra Ultima, the Montreal-based travel agency that said three Quebecers were among those missing and feared dead, issued an update Thursday.
It said it was focused on rescue efforts and providing support for the families of those who disappeared and also for those trekkers who have returned to Kathmandu.
Terra Ultima said earlier that six Quebecers in all were in the area, including those missing: two women in their 50s and one in her 30s.
One of the three is the hikers’ guide.
A statement from the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal said the bodies of four Canadians were recovered from the Phu area in Manang district.
A company called Panorama Himalaya confirmed the deaths of three Canadian clients in an avalanche while Nepal Hidden Treks confirmed the death of a Canadian woman.
Panorama Himalaya also said that it had rescued three other Canadians, according to the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal.