MONTREAL―It is a
photograph, taken in early October, that shows excitement, vitality and
well-being. Six Canadians gathered in Kathmandu, Nepal, ready to begin
the journey of a lifetime near the top of the world.
On the far left is the
group’s local guide, Kusang Sherpa, dressed in a blue vest that bears
the logo of Terra Ultima, the Montreal tour company that had arranged
the trek through Nepal’s famed Annapurna region. On the far right is
Sylvie Marois, a 54-year-old veteran of the outdoors as well as an
instructor in adventure tourism, which included training in avalanche
safety.
In the photo, which
was posted on Facebook but has since been removed, Marois, too, is
wearing a black shirt with the red logo of the Canadian outfitter.
Between the local
guide and Marois are five people who, on Tuesday night, came face to
face with the destructive power of nature after the remnants of a
cyclone dumped unstable, wet snow on Nepal’s Annapurna circuit, a
three-week trekking route through the mountains, and provoked the deadly avalanche that took three lives in an instant, but inexplicably spared three others.
“It was the day of the
nightmare,” Sonia Lévesque, a Montreal lawyer who was part of the
group, told Radio-Canada in an interview from Kathmandu. Lévesque was
travelling with her husband, who also survived.
Canadian guide Sylvia Marois has been identified as one of the
Canadians killed in the Nepal avalanche, the Montreal newspaper La
Presse reports.
“It happened extremely
quickly. In a few seconds three people from our group were carried away
by the avalanche . . . we went to see if we could find our friends and
our guide went to the area to see if he could see or hear anything but
unfortunately there was about 20 metres of snow at the bottom of the
avalanche.”
Though none of the
Canadian victims has been formally identified, the local guide company,
Panorama Himalaya, said three people from this group had been killed.
Montreal’s La Presse reported that Marois was swept away by the rush of
snow and is presumed dead. A Quebec City nurse, 33-year-old Geneviève
Adam, is also among the missing and the woman’s father was en route
Thursday to Nepal to be closer to the massive search-and-rescue
operation, said her uncle.
A third female in the
group, who has not been identified, was also swept away by the
avalanche. The woman’s husband survived, Lévesque told Radio-Canada.
After the avalanche
hit, Lévesque said she and the two other survivors had to walk 90
minutes to shelter in a cabin, where they spent the night before being
evacuated by helicopter, kicking off the frantic search for the dead and
those still living.
“No efforts will be
spared to find the missing trekkers,” the travel company Terra Ultima
said in a statement Thursday, adding it had dispatched personnel to
Kathmandu to assist the survivors from its group.
Another Nepalese guide
company, Nepal Hidden Trek, has reported the death of one Canadian
woman, but her identity has also not been released. The four Canadians
victims are among 27 who have been reported killed so far in the
avalanche. But as search efforts ramped up on Thursday, with 77 stranded
trekkers being airlifted to safety, there remain dozens more who are
simply unaccounted for.
They may be buried
under metres of heavy, wet snow, they may be stranded in villages or
mountain cabins somewhere along their route and awaiting rescue or they
may simply be disconnected from the tragic events of this week and
blissfully unaware of the anxiety their silence causes in those back
home.
That was the case for
Maureen McTavish and her three friends, all from British Columbia, who
arrived Wednesday night at a base camp and stumbled into a teahouse that
had a wireless Internet connection.
“They actually had no
idea about the severe weather or critical situations elsewhere on the
Annapurna circuit,” said Matt McTavish, her son. “If they had known,
they said they would have tried to contact us all sooner.”
Word also came that Montrealer Charles de Courval, who had been travelling with two other men in hardest-hit area, is also safe.
“The group took refuge
in a little village. They’re safe and sound, but the route was
destroyed,” one of de Courval’s friends, Annie Rodrigue wrote on
Facebook. Word came at about 1 a.m. Thursday.
“They are in the
village of Koto for those who want to see where that is,” wrote Mathieu
Chiasson, another friend. “It’s in an area that was hit hard.”
But
there have been only slow updates from more than 30 other Canadian
trekkers who have remained unaccounted for. Late Thursday night, they
included trekkers Marc Voyer and Rose Maninang, both of Toronto. They
had been in one of the areas worst hit by the avalanche just a day
before the storms arrived, but sent word that they had completed their
journey Wednesday, having encountered only persistent rain.
Virginia Schwartz, a
37-year-old from Pontiac, Que., who is travelling with her Ottawa
friend, Jane Van Criekingen were in touch Thursday morning to put her
panicked friends and family at ease.
Schwartz’s brother
Mark, who created a Facebook site that has become an international
clearinghouse for information on the missing trekkers, recounted his
sister saying that helicopters spent all of Thursday buzzing the air
before lack of light brought the day’s efforts to a halt.
The search is being
led by the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal, which released a
list of 77 people who had been rescued throughout the day. Among them
were three Canadians who, unlike all the rest, are not identified by
name or passport number.
The Israeli government
has also dispatched a search crew to Nepal to help in the rescue
effort. There are three Israeli citizens confirmed dead in the avalanche
and another individual is missing.
In Ottawa, the federal
government has provided no such information about Canadians affected by
the disaster, but said in a statement Thursday that it is monitoring
the situation in Kathmandu. Relatives of trekkers who are unaccounted
for are asked to the Canadian Consulate in Nepal, Canada’s High
Commission in India or the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa.
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