“Death passed us 50 metres away,” said Naren Koduvattat, managing director of an IT company in Mangaluru, who survived an earthquake with 11 others, including six from Mangaluru, on top of a Himalayan mountain range in Nepal on April 25. He returned to the city on Thursday evening.
Mr. Koduvattat, who earlier worked with Infosys, said that seven persons from Mangaluru and five others, including three guides and two local porters, were 4,511 m high on the Sumdur mountain, near Thame, Eastern Nepal, when the earthquake hit. They were trekking to reach the peak of the mountain which is 5,500 m high.
“We began to climb the mountain around 6 a.m. It was about 11.30 a.m. when we were at 4,511-metre height,” he said. Though they were a group of 10 trekkers, one remained in the lodge in Thame and two of his friends retuned mid-way from the trekking.
Seven of them had continued to trek with porters and guides.
“The mountain started shaking. It was like wobbling as if you were on top of an arecanut palm. Suddenly there was a heavy noise — a cracking noise — sounding like the branch of a huge tree falling down in heavy winds. Visibility was low. We heard a humming noise which was the sound of an avalanche. We lay down on the ground immediately,” he said.
“It happened all of a sudden — within four minutes. Then we realised that an earthquake was happening,” Mr. Koduvattat said, adding that there was a landslide just 50 m away from where they had been standing.
“Soon we contacted the lodge at Thame where we were staying and our family members and told them about the incident. Luckily, mobile phone signals were working and we started climbing down,” he said.
Mr. Koduvattat said that about 35 houses had been damaged in Thame village but the lodge was safe.
The next day they made their own arrangements to hire a helicopter to reach the nearest airport at Lukla where they had to spend three nights. From Lukla they flew to Kathmandu in a commercial flight on April 29, and from there they flew to New Delhi in an Indian Air Force flight to reach at 6 p.m. They returned to Mangaluru from New Delhi on April 30.
Phurba Sherba, the chief guide, did not leave us from beginning to end though he lost his house in the earthquake in Kathmandu. We separated with a heavy heart.
