Aftershocks hamper Everest rescues

ITANAGAR, India - Helicopter teams began evacuating critically injured climbers at Mount Everest's base camp Sunday morning, but the effort came to an abrupt halt when a significant aftershock triggered more avalanches and fears of additional casualties at the world's highest peak.

Dozens of climbers remain trapped on the side of the mountain at two camps that sit above where the avalanche fell, climbers said in tweets and posts on social media. Ropes and other equipment left in place to help them descend had been swept away in Saturday's avalanche.

Daniel Mazur, a climber trapped at Camp 1, tweeted Sunday "Aftershock @ 1 pm! Horrible here in camp 1 Avalanches on 3 sides. C1 [Camp 1] a tiny island. We worry about the icefall team below. Alive?"

Col. Rohan Anand, a spokesman for the Indian army, which had a mountaineering team training on Everest at the time of the disaster, said the rescue effort has been hampered by communications difficulties and weather as well as the aftershock. The tremor occurred around 1 p.m. Nepal time Sunday and registered magnitude 6.7, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The army said that 19 had died at the Everest base camp Saturday after an enormous sweep of ice, rocks, and snow tumbled toward the camp in an avalanche triggered by Nepal's deadly earthquake. They rescued about five dozen climbers, mostly foreign tourists.

The wind that accompanied the avalanche "completely pulverized and blew the camp away," American climber Jon Kedrowski, who was at the base camp, wrote on his blog Sunday.

Rescue helicopters had begun to land at the base camp - which is used by hundreds of climbers as the starting point for Everest ascents during peak climbing season - in the morning after the weather cleared and the sun peeped through the clouds. This gave rescuers an opportunity to ferry about 50 of the most critically wounded, climbers and their sherpa guides, to safety.

China's Xinhua news agency reported that more than 400 mountaineers on the north side of Mount Everest were safe, quoting the sports administration of Tibet.

The jittery survivors rushed out of the dining tent every time they felt a shock Sunday, Dutch climber Eric Arnold wrote on his blog. "Fear has got the better of us."

More than 1,500 people can inhabit Everest base camp at any point during peak climbing season, including climbers, sherpa guides, porters, and other staff, said Eric Johnson, a Montana emergency surgeon who sits on the board of Everest ER, which runs a clinic there. The Los Angeles Times reported that more than 200 people were still missing Sunday.