'I'm going to be buried alive...' journalists on Mt Everest

"We heard this most horrifying sound, it was like a train but came from so deep... And then finally there was this stillness, this complete stillness, and I knew I was alive," says photographer Roberto Schmidt of the moment he survived an avalanche on Everest.
Schmidt, AFP's South Asia photo chief, and Kathmandu bureau chief Ammu Kannampilly had just reached Everest base camp on assignment Saturday when an avalanche - triggered by the 7.8-magnitude quake that has killed more than 4,310 in Nepal - thundered down the mountain.
After reaching the relative safety of Lukla town, the traditional gateway to Everest, they spoke of their recollections and recounted the scenes of carnage on the mountain where hundreds of climbers had gathered.

"We had just arrived after a nine-day trek. It's a tough hike and difficult to comprehend the impact on your body but it's an amazing place - truly breathtaking in both senses of the word," said Schmidt.
"As I got in I was just taking all sorts of pictures and then went looking for our tent.
"We hadn't been there more than 10 minutes we just felt this rumbling, this moan. Ammu said to me: 'What's that?' I said it's the earth moving, it's an avalanche.

"I grew up in Colombia where we used to have many tremors but never heard anything like this.

"We went out of the tent and then we heard this most horrifying sound. It was like a train but came from so deep, just so powerful.
"It was so cloudy, Ammu went into the tent and I remember looking to my left and suddenly saw this, this wave, with the rumble and I just thought 'holy shit'.
"I grabbed the camera, just pressing the shutter, I got three shots and then it was right over us. I jumped in and went under the table.
"You have this wind and then it's like a wave crashing, we were swept up, you don't know if whether you are upside down or what. You are just tumbling.

"Finally I came to, resting on my back and then I felt this tack, tack sound of falling rocks and you know I just felt 'this is it. I'm going to be buried alive'.
"They kept on piling on top of me and then finally there was this stillness, this complete stillness, and I knew I was alive. I knew I was conscious and I had to work out how I was going to breathe.
"You're trying to clear everything away, trying to get some air... And then suddenly I felt this hand pulling me up and it was our sherpa Pasang.

"Ammu was bleeding and the nail on her left hand had been completely torn off.
"We were lucky as I think our tents were next to a rock which stopped us from being completely swept away," Roberto Schmidt said.