Ten people, including nine Britons, have been reported to have survived after a major avalanche swept over the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan.
The images posted on Instagram by Harry Shimmin, one of the people on the trekking route, showed that the snow was starting to break a mountain in the distance and was heading towards them, forcing the group to protect themselves while the snow it passed over it.
Shimmin had broken away from the guided tour to take pictures when he heard “the sound of deep ice cracking behind me,” according to an account he posted alongside the video.
He added: “I had already been there for a few minutes, so I knew there was a place to take refuge next to me.
“I left it at the last second to move, and yes, I know it would have been safer to move to the shelter right away. I’m very aware that I took a big risk. I felt controlled, but anyway, when the snow started to come and it got dark / harder to breathe, I was sinking it and I thought I might die. “
The Tian Shan Mountains are mainly straddling southeastern Kyrgyzstan and its northeastern border with China. They were part of the ancient Silk Road trade route from the Middle East and Asia to the west.
Shimmin said he knew the rest of his group was further away and that he would be safe, and wrote that he felt “marginalized” when he realized he was only covered in light dust “without scratches.”
They had to walk the path of the avalanche shortly after. “We would only have heard the roar before the lights went out,” he said.
According to Shimmin, several members of the group received minor injuries and an American woman in the group had her knee cut to the bone and taken with a horse to a medical center three hours away. After being sewn by a doctor and spending time in an emergency room, she flew home.
Shimmin said he had thought about how close a call had been and how lucky people were to escape a serious injury.
“I won’t lie, it was creepy to walk through the consequences of where we would have been if we had been 5 minutes faster,” he wrote. “I stared at the roof of my tent for longer than I would like to admit that night. Very, very glad everyone survived without very serious injuries.”
Last week, 11 people died after a large piece of an alpine glacier in Italy broke, sending an avalanche of ice, snow and rocks down the slope. Following this incident, scientists said similar events are likely to become more frequent as the planet warms.
The disappearance of Kyrgyzstan’s glaciers has been described as an urgent problem by the United Nations. In an interview with the Independent in June, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov warned of the danger posed by the climate crisis to mountainous countries like his.
“The world is facing global climate change, which is fraught with dangerous consequences,” Zhaparov said. “This is especially true for us, the mountain countries, because these problems are more dynamic and specific: glaciers are melting and natural water reserves are dwindling, which can lead to impending disaster.
“Kyrgyzstan is home to nearly 10,000 glaciers. For the past 20 years, we have been witnessing an irreversible melting of these centuries-old glaciers.”