Dramatic footage has emerged showing the moment an avalanche sparked by the Nepal earthquake crashed into Everest base camp killing at least 18 people.



The video was shot by German climber Jost Kobusch as he and his colleagues tried to scramble out of the path of the avalanche.

With fears that the death toll at Everest could continue to rise, a British climber stranded on the mountain said he feared the “race against time” for those awaiting rescue.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mountaineers and Sherpa guides are evacuated from Everest by helicopter . Photograph: Pasang Dawa Sherpa/AP

Climbers, including several Britons, have been cut off from the mountain’s base camp, which is reported to have been devastated by the initial quake and yesterday’s large aftershock.

Nepal’s mountaineering department said at least 18 people had been killed and 61 were injured in the avalanche, while an unknown number were still missing.

However, the evacuation of up to 100 mountaineers stranded at the higher camps appeared to have begun on Monday as helicopters were deployed to bring them down to base camp.

According to reports from climbers at Everest base camp three helicopters were running shuttles into the camps in the Western Cwm above the ice fall – a jumble of ice cliffs and crevasses - where the usual climbing route, equipped with ropes and ladders, was badly damaged by Saturday’s earthquake.

Because of the altitude the small helicopters involved in the evacuation can only take two climbers at a time according to Alex Gavan, a Romanian mountaineer among those still at base camp where 22 climbers were killed and 61 injured in a massive avalanche on Saturday.



Gavan reported the evacuation on Monday morning on Twitter: “Stranded climbers evacuation from camp1&2 continues. 3 helis fly non stop. Only 2 people per shuttle due to high altitude. Weather good.”

Efforts to help those stranded at camps one and two had been hampered at first by poor weather and by the need for the helicopters to evacuate the worst injured first to a clinic in the village of Pheriche.

Jim Davidson, a US climber among those trapped at camp one, was one of the first to be evacuated updating his Facebook page by satellite phone.

“Weather good on Everest. Evacuation of C1 & C2 going well. I am safe in basecamp now ...the injuries, fatalities & tragedy are heartbreaking.”

Nepal quake: Everest base camp 'looked like it had been flattened by bomb' Read more

James Grieve, of Kinross, Scotland, was stranded at camp one. “Everyone is apprehensive about what’s happening and what will happen in the next 24 hours,” he told the Sun. “Our tents have all been lost and we have around 18 dead bodies at base camp.

“There is a lot of confusion in the camp and there are still about 120 of us here waiting to be rescued.

“We are in a race against time to get off the mountain,” he added, estimating up to 50 people had been killed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Climbers stand amid the debris at Everest base camp. Photograph: Azim Afif/EPA

On Sunday, Argentine climbing guide Damian Benegas, working for the US expedition company AAI, led a small team down to the ice fall from camp one to find a route through for the climbers stranded higher on the mountain.



“Tremors made this impossible,” a spokesperson from AAI wrote in an update posted to the company’s website. “At this time, the teams at base camp feel a route through the icefall will be very difficult and thus we are looking to use helicopter transport to move our and other teams from Camp I to Base Camp.”

Jon Kedrowski, a mountaineer from Colorado who was at base camp when the quake struck, told National Geographic that a huge blast of air released by the avalanche accounted for many casualties.

“People that took refuge in tents turned out to be the unlucky ones … only a few feet away if a person hid behind a rock or an ice bank they escaped unharmed.

“People in tents were wrapped up in them, lifted by the force of the blast and then slammed down onto rocks, glacial moraine and ice on the glacier.” Kedrowski estimated that 40-50% of base camp, which is at 5,545m, had been destroyed.

The Sun said Grieve was in a party with fellow British climbers Alex Staniforth, 19, of Chester, expedition leader Daniel Mazur, from Bristol and Sam and Alex Chappatte, from London.

On Twitter yesterday, Staniforth’s UK-based support team revealed the difficulty caused by the weather.

They said: “Alex has just texted via sat phone. They will spend another night at C1. Weather has drawn in making it too difficult to fly choppers.”

After an aftershock of magnitude 6.7, Mazur tweeted: “Aftershock 1pm! Horrible here in camp 1. Avalanches on 3 sides. C1 a tiny island. We worry about icefall team below.. Alive?”

He later said: “Icefall scouts back w/ news: GOOD: route is there. BAD: it sustained damage. V BAD: icefall Sherpas bc gone; ran away to Namche!”