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SATURDAY’S huge earthquake and tremors on Sunday split ice on the Khumbu Icefall that separates the Mount Everest base camp from the summit route.
It also knocked loose a huge block of ice above base camp, triggering an avalanche that killed 19 people, including Australian woman Renu Fotedar, three Americans and five Nepalese.
Dozens more are believed to be dead or buried after the earthquake destroyed routes leading back to the base camp.
Veteran guide Gyan Tamang told his brother, Tika Tamang, via satellite phone that rescuers were evacuating the dead and injured in helicopters but up to 50 people remained trapped at the high camps above where the avalanche fell.
“They can’t get through Khumbu Icefall — the route collapsed,” he said.
“It’s like a moving river — everything has broken.”
Mr Tamang, who co-founded Australian company The Everest Academy with Melbourne man Nick Farr, said his brother and others at base camp had food and water and hoped to soon make it to Kathmandu.
“He said he was OK but many people died there,” Mr Tamang said.
A fleet of helicopters spent much of yesterday lifting off mountaineers stuck on Everest.
They have diminishing food and fuel supplies.
It is now unlikely anyone else will climb the mountain this year.
There were fewer injuries among climbers in the high camps one and two.
Helicopters carried hundreds of climbers, guides and sherpas over the Khumbu crossing to base camp yesterday.
Rescue co-ordinator Steve Moffat, of New Zealand-based Adventure Consultants, said there were several helicopters at base camp when the quake struck.
“They are doing a pretty good job today and we hope to get everybody off the mountain,” he said.
Flying conditions deteriorated during the day.
“By 9.30 this morning we had all of our team down from camp one. They are all safe at Everest base camp,” he said.
Hundreds of people at base camp would now walk to Lukla and catch domestic flights to the capital Kathmandu.
Five sherpas working for Adventure Consultants were killed when the avalanche first hit.
Intrepid Travel manager Steve Wroe said more Everest climbs were unlikely this year.
Without a safe path across the Khumbu crossing, it would be impossible for anyone to get beyond base camp.
Intrepid had 166 customers in Nepal when the earthquake struck, including 80 Australians.
He said all were safe.
Mr Wroe said he had feared for hundreds of sherpas who spend April preparing camps above base camp for climbers, but he had been told those at camps one and two were safe.
International Mountain Guides staff surveyed the Khumbu glacier from the air at the weekend but could not see a safe path.
“The route is badly broken up. Many ladders are lost and ropes buried,” a spokesman said.