As you might have already heard on the news, Nepal suffered a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake last Saturday. More than 4,800 are dead and more than 9,200 are injured. It is the deadliest natural disaster in the Himalayan kingdom in 80 years.
I write this because The Fifth Person was supposed to climb Everest Base Camp (EBC) last May. The trek was postponed because an avalanche hit EBC on 18 April 2014 killing sixteen people. We missed it by a couple of weeks.
This year, we were supposed to head to EBC in April/May again but our work commitments decided otherwise. Because of this, I’m now writing this post from the comfort and safety of Singapore as opposed to being trapped with my partners in Nepal or possibly worse. Because of the earthquake on Saturday, an avalanche hit EBC again, this time more deadly, killing seventeen people.
We’re very lucky.
But ......