원정 개요

From the Telegraph, Calcutta, India:

Guwahati, May 14: They were just 200 metres from where disaster struck - an avalanche that devoured 18 people at the Everest base camp.

The scars of April 25, when the tremors jolted Nepal, and still continue to do so, will be hard to erase, but the 11-member Assam Everest Expedition team has not lost hope of fulfilling a dream it has harboured for long-to climb the world's highest peak.

"It was around 11.45am when all of us could feel the glacier beneath our feet shaking violently. Thereafter, our worst fear became a reality as chunks of ice, stone and debris came crashing down at the base camp, demolishing everything in its way. We were training just 200 metres away," team leader Manash Barooah told reporters here today, recalling the "tryst with near death."

The team arrived in Guwahati yesterday after almost a month and a half since it left the city for Kathmandu en route to Base Camp.

The decision to cancel the expedition was taken on May 3, one that has left them shaken and distraught.

"The decision came after a meeting in the presence of several leaders of various expedition teams and Russell Brice, a representative of Himex, an organisation which guides mountaineering and trekking expeditions to Mt. Everest. Brice told us that he was running short of experienced Sherpas to open a route above Camp 2, as many of his Sherpas had left for home after the earthquake," Barooah said.