‘ Boulders size of vans hit trekking village’

American trekker recalls ordeal; village was popular stop for trekkers

Kathmandu, May 5: An American trekker stranded for five days in a remote part of Nepal by a massive earthquake has described watching boulders the size of minivans smash buildings in Langtang, a popular tourism area whose main village was wiped out by an avalanche.

Langtang, near the border with Tibet, was one of the areas worst hit by the April 25 quake that struck at the height of the spring trekking season, trapping hundreds of tourists and Nepalis in remote areas accessible only on foot or by helicopter.

BBC footage from Langtang broadcast Tuesday showed scenes of utter devastation, with houses razed and bodies laid out on tarpaulins on the desolate terrain, ringed by snow- capped mountains and dotted with Tibetan Buddhist stupas and prayer flags.

Rescuers were digging Tuesday through thousands of tons of earth from a quake- triggered mudslide in Nepal that wiped out an entire village along a popular Himalayan trekking route and killed at least 60 people.

Nine of the victims recovered in the Langtang Valley since the April 25 earthquake and mudslide were foreign trekkers, said Gautam Rimal, the top government official in the Rasuwa district. Villagers say as many as 200 people could have been killed.

The valley and its little village of Langtang are about 60 km north of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. It was a popular stop for trekkers because of its scenic views of the Himalayas.

Many of those there when the quake hit have now been airlifted out, among them US citizen Corey Ascolani, who spent five days in Langtang with other terrified trekkers and watched two helicopters come and go before he was finally rescued.

The 34- year- old former English teacher and avid hiker had stopped for a coffee at an outdoor teahouse in Bamboo village near the start of the trail when the ground began to shake, sending huge rocks hurtling down the cliffs on both sides of the gorge.

“We were running back and forth... The rocks just kept falling and it seemed like there was nowhere to go,” Ascolani told AFP in Kathmandu.

Along with around 60 other tourists and 20 Nepalis, Ascolani was trapped in the gorge — unable to walk out because of constant rockfalls from the vertiginous slopes.

He described how they sheltered under boulders and rigged tarpaulins between trees to sleep under. — AFP, AP