'Demons on the mountain'; survivors recall avalanche terror
April 27, 2015 09:25
When Khile Sherpa opened his eyes, the snow around him was bright red, drenched with blood streaming from gashes in his body from the avalanche that catapulted him across Mount Everest's base camp at lunchtime on Saturday.
Khile was among the first 15 survivors flown from Everest to Kathmandu on Sunday after a powerful earthquake hit Nepal a day earlier killing more than 2,460 people, at least 17 of them in the avalanche it triggered on the world's tallest peak.
"It was a monstrous sound, like the demons had descended on the mountain," Khile told Reuters, a bandage wrapped around his head and covering half his face.
Like hundreds of other earthquake victims, the 20-year-old was waiting for treatment outside Kathmandu's overcrowded Medical College hospital.
The mountain guide recalled how he had just served lunch to a group of foreign climbers in the high altitude tented town when he heard the roar higher up the slope.
Seconds later, a vast cloud of ice and boulders hit and he was knocked unconscious for, he estimates, about an hour.
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