Actress and activist Sophia Bush and Google executive Dan Fredinburg in 2013. Bush said she was heartbroken to learn Fredinburg, her friend and former beau, had been killed in the avalanche. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Marisa Eve Girawong, an emergency room physician assistant from Edison, N.J., died in the avalanche. Photo courtesy of Madison Mountaineering

WASHINGTON, April 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of State has confirmed four Americans were among the 17 people killed in Mount Everest after an avalanche triggered by the 7.9-magnitude earthquake in Nepal.

Camp medic Marisa Eve Girawong, filmmaker Tom Taplin, Google executive Dan Fredinburg and hiker Vinh Truong died when the avalanche struck.


Girawong was an emergency room physician assistant from Edison, N.J., who was serving as the Mount Everest camp doctor for Madison Mountaineering, based in Seattle.

"Our hearts are broken," Madison Mountaineering said in a statement.

Taplin, 61, was filming a documentary about the Mount Everest base camp. His wife, Cory Freyer, sent him a text message to see if he was all right, but there was no response.

Taplin's guide called Freyer, beginning the conversation with "I'm so sorry."

"It's shocking," Freyer told NBC News. "All of his friends, and he has so many friends, every one of them is just devastated. Shocked."

She described Taplin as a passionate photographer, filmmaker and mountaineer.

"It sounds trite, but he died doing what he loved doing," Freyer said.

Dan Fredinburg, an adventurer and Google executive, was also confirmed dead.

"We appreciate all of the love that has been sent our way thus far and know his soul and his spirit will live on in so many of us," Fredinburg's sister Megan said when she posted the news on his Instagram account. "All our love and thanks to those who shared this life with our favorite hilarious, strong-willed man. He was and is everything to us."

Google released a statement confirming his death:

"Sadly, we lost one of our own in this tragedy," the statement read. "Dan Fredinburg, a longtime member of the Privacy organization in Mountain View, was in Nepal with three other Googlers, hiking Mount Everest. He has passed away. The other three Googlers with him are safe, and we are working to get them home quickly."

Actress and activist Sophia Bush said she was heartbroken to learn Fredinburg, her friend and former beau, had been killed in the avalanche.

The State Department only confirmed the identity of one of the Americans killed, Vinh, a Vietnamese-American who was on a 10-day hiking trip. He died at the Mount Everest base camp.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu was offering shelter to 305 U.S. citizens in the city, State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said.