Video: Moment Everest avalanche hits

Latest: According to the last correspondence with the UAE team that was participating in the Everest Base Camp Challenge when the deadly Nepal earthquake hit on Saturday, the eight-member group has now reached Devouche and are ‘safe’.

In a Facebook post by Gulf For Good, the update stated: “We had a direct conversation with the group representative, Anne Edmondson... All the challengers are well, and they have safely reached Devouche, where they will stay tonight in a safe accommodation booked.

“Kindly note that currently there is no wifi available to them hence, they are unable to share updates on Facebook at the moment...”

According to their itinerary, the group plans to continue its trek from Devouche to Monjo on Monday and then from Monjo to Lukla on Tuesday.

The post further added: “Our team on-ground has a good assessment of the current situation in Nepal. The challengers are in a relatively safer area, hundreds of miles in the eastern region of Kathmandu.”

- Indian Army team pulls out 22 bodies after Everest avalanche - India Today.

Earlier report:

Climbers from the UAE are reported safe following their participation in the Everest Base Camp Challenge in Nepal this week, organised by Gulf for Good.

According to the team’s last update on Sunday, the group confirmed it was safe and had sought refuge in the mountain settlement of Lobuche.

The news comes even as another quake, measuring between 6.7 and 6.9 in magnitude, shook Nepal and the northern parts of India on Sunday.

The Gulf For Good UAE team was participating in the Everest Base Camp Challenge to raise money for charity (Facebook)

The UAE team's last update stated it sought refuge in Lobuche following Saturday's avalanche on Everest (Facebook)

In a morning update from climber Edmondson, she stated: “The group has started their downward journey from Lobuche (4,930 metres) to Devouche (3,900 metres) where they will rest and spend the night. The weather is okay.

“We feel positive that they will be able to reach in good time. Everyone in the group is doing fine.”

Lawson gave us an account of the night from Lubuche, stating: “Not a lot of sleep last night as we felt aftershocks, rocks came down the hill and struck the roof of the building we were in causing us to evacuate but no damage and no injuries; just lots of cold people [sic].

Climber Jim Davidson reported on fresh avalanches on Everest on Sunday, following the aftershock measuring 6.7 in magnitude (Twitter)

17 bodies at base camp

Seventeen bodies have been recovered at the base camp on Mount Everest where hundreds of climbers are stranded after an earthquake in Nepal on Saturday triggered an avalanche on the world's highest peak, a mountaineering official said.

The first injured were helicoptered out in the morning, Romanian climber Alex Gavan tweeted from base camp.

"All badly injured heli evacuated," Gavan said. "Caring for those needing. want sleep."

Twenty-two climbers had been ferried to a lower altitude, from where the first 18 would be evacuated to Kathmandu by a heavy helicopter that took off from the capital's airport in the morning after heavy clouds cleared.

                                     An injured person is loaded onto a rescue helicopter at Everest Base Camp on April 26, 2015, a day after an avalanche triggered by an earthquake devastated the camp. (AFP)

The avalanche swept down Everest, burying part of base camp as climbers gathered near the main route to the summit at the beginning of the climbing season in the deadliest incident on the mountain.

US climber John Reiter said dozens of people had suffered critical injuries, many of them with head injuries. "It's been a rough 18 hours," he told CNN.

An injured person is carried by rescue members to be airlifted by rescue helicopter at Everest Base Camp on April 26, 2015, a day after an avalanche triggered by an earthquake devastated the camp. (AFP)

Seventeen bodies were recovered after part of Everest base camp was engulfed by the snowslide, Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, told Reuters. Sixty-one people were injured.

One of those killed was Dan Fredinburg, a Google engineer based in California. He suffered head injuries when the avalanche hit, according to a statement from the mountaineering company that had taken him to base camp.

Prayer flags frame a rescue helicopter as it ferries the injured from Everest Base Camp on April 26, 2015. (AFP)

"We pray too for all those who have lost their lives in one of the greatest tragedies ever to hit this Himalayan nation," Jagged Globe said.

Tourism ministry officials estimated that at least 1,000 climbers, including about 400 foreigners, had been at base camp or on the ascent to the peak when the earthquake struck.

At Everest camps 1 and 2, above base camp, 100 climbers and guides were safe but were unable to descend because of damage to a route through the treacherous Khumbu icefalls, Sherpa told Reuters.
Rescuers tend to a sherpa injured by an avalanche that flattened parts of Everest Base Camp. (AFP)

In a second tweet, Gavan said that climber Willie Benegas had be helicoptered up to camp 1 to bring ropes, ice screws and snow pickets to climbers trapped there.

April is one of the most popular times to scale the 8,850-metre (29,035 foot) peak before rain and clouds cloak it at the end of May. Almost exactly a year ago, an avalanche killed 16 Nepali guides in what had been the single deadliest day on the mountain.

Saturday's 7.9-magnitude quake was the strongest to hit Nepal for 81 years. It also shook neighbouring India, China and Bangladesh. Early on Sunday, the official death toll stood at more than 1,800 people in Nepal.

Sherpas, climbers, porters and rescue teams help carry a person injured by an avalanche that flattened part of Everest Base Camp. (AFP)

Nick Farr, an Australian climber of The Everest Academy and Trek Climb Ski Nepal, said efforts to find out the situation at base camp were being hindered by poor phone coverage.

"Nothing is being received out of there at the moment," he said.

Steve Moffat, a mountain guide and operations coordinator for New Zealand-based Adventure Consultants, said two Nepali staff had been killed when the avalanche tore through base camp.

Rescuers assist an injured person after an earthquake triggered by an avalanche flattened parts of Everest Base Camp. (AFP)

A further 31 staff and climbing clients - including two from the United States, five from New Zealand and one each from Australia, Italy and Iceland - were safe but stranded at Camp 1, further up the mountain.

"The first stage and the first priority is to get them down to base camp. We don't know if it's going to be possible to get them down and out through the Khumbu Icefall or whether we will need to chopper them out," Moffat said from New Zealand. 

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