Mountaineers, guides scurrying from Everest base camp

KATHMANDU, NEPAL— Mountaineers, guides and porters streamed from Mount Everest base camp on Sunday in the wake of a deadly earthquaketriggered avalanche that obliterated parts of the rocky village of nylon tents. Some warned that dozens of people may still be missing.

The worst injured were ferried out in helicopters, while those remaining at base camp endured a series of aftershocks, some of which caused smaller but still terrifying avalanches in the surrounding mountains.

But as the first stunned survivors of the avalanche reached Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, they said that dozens of people may still be missing and were almost certainly dead.

“The snow swept away many tents and people,” said Gyelu Sherpa, a sunburned guide among the first group of survivors to reach Kathmandu.

The 15, most of them Sherpa guides or support staff working on Everest, flew from Lukla, a small airstrip not far from Everest. None were believed to be facing life-threatening injuries, but many limped to a bus taking them to a nearby hospital, or were partially wrapped in bandages.

Witnesses said the avalanche began on Mount Pumori, a 7,000metre-high mountain just a few kilometres from Everest, gathering strength as it headed toward base camp and the lower reaches of Everest’s climbing routes.

Numerous climbers remained stranded Sunday on routes above base camp, but teams in contact by phone said no one was believed to be in danger.