POKHARA, Nepal, Jan 20, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Rescuers intensified an
increasingly desperate hunt Monday for four South Korean trekkers and three
Nepalis swept away by an avalanche in the Himalayas as a guide told how he
saw people carried off by the snow.
Krishna Hari Subedi was helping a Chinese trekker on the trail near the
Annapurna base camp when the wall of snow hit on Friday.
“We were descending when an avalanche came rumbling down. Three people were
swept down by it in front of my eyes,” Subedi told AFP.
“I ducked down and my guest followed, we were safe. If we had moved
forward, there was a cliff edge, we would have been swept down.”
Subedi said he saw three people carried away but did not know how many
others had been hit in the line of trekkers on the route.
“When we began heading down again, we heard a cry for help,” he added.
“One of them survived and was walking up. It was nearly 300 metres down.
When he saw us, he fainted… he was taken to a hospital.”
The fate of the other two remains uncertain.
– Families’ anxious wait –
Soldiers have joined a team using drones and helicopters and digging in
deep snow at 3,230 metres (10,600 feet) where the avalanche struck.
Small helicopters were being used to drop rescuers at the site, Shanta Bir
Lama, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, told AFP.
“The narrowness of the area makes the search difficult,” explained Lama.
“There is also a lot of snow. But teams today will try to remove the snow
and search. Devices are also being used,” he added.
A nine-member army team has joined the operation while the South Korean
embassy also sent an official to assist.
“The snow from the avalanche is piled four to five metres (13 to 16 feet)
deep at the site. No signs of the missing have been reported as of Monday,”
an official of the South’s foreign ministry said.
Experts say there is a very low chance of survival for those buried in an
avalanche for more than two hours.
Relatives of the missing Koreans who arrived in Kathmandu on Saturday have
also visited the avalanche area.
Six of the missing were part of the same expedition, while one Nepali
porter was escorting a different group.
The four foreigners — two men and two women — were part of an 11-member
South Korean team. Others have safely descended.
Education officials in Seoul said they were part of a team of volunteer
teachers working with children in Nepal.
Helicopters were sent out on Saturday to rescue about 200 people stranded
around Annapurna and other nearby mountains after the avalanche.
Annapurna is an avalanche-prone and technically difficult mountain range
with a higher death rate than Everest, the world’s highest peak.
Thousands of trekkers visit the route every year for its stunning views of
the Himalayas.
A snowstorm killed about 40 people on the circuit in 2014, in one of the
biggest trekking tragedies to hit Nepal.