Nepal Earthquake Everest Base Camp Avalanche: 10 Killed, More Deaths Feared As Climbers Scramble To Rescue Victims

This story has been updated.

Update, 12:01 p.m. EDT: At least 18 people have died in an avalanche that swept through Mount Everest, India’s CNN-IBN reported. All of those killed were reportedly foreigners.

Original Article Below.

An earthquake in Nepal set off an avalanche on Mount Everest Saturday that has killed at least 10 people, and climbers are still scrambling to find and rescue survivors, Reuters reported.

Alex Gavan, a mountaineer at Everest Base Camp, tweeted:

Gyanendra Shrestha, a Nepalese tourism official, told Reuters the number of casualties caused by the mass of rapidly falling snow and ice could rise, saying, "The toll could go up."

Earlier Saturday, Gavan tweeted:

Everest Base Camp was partly buried in the avalanche. Poor phone reception has hampered both rescue efforts and an accurate assessment of the death toll, according to media reports. "The trekkers are scattered all around the base camp, and some had even trekked further up," Mohan Krishna Sapkota, a joint secretary in Nepal's tourism ministry, told Reuters.

The strongest to hit Nepal in eight decades, the earthquake struck west of its capital Kathmandu. At least 876 people in Nepal have been killed so far, BBC News reported, and many more are likely trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings and infrastructure. The quake also reverberated in neighboring countries such as India and Bangladesh.

April is an extremely popular time to trek the Himalayas, the mountain range that is home to Mount Everest, the tallest peak in the world at almost 30,000 feet. Many companies organize trips for climbers in April and May, according to USA Today.