By Mark Ambrogi
For Carmel resident Glenn Moehling, the devastation of the Nepal earthquake is still sinking in.
Glenn, 53, and his son Mark, 26, were making the journey to the Mt. Everest Base Camp along with friend Dr. Mike Myers, Carmel, when the devastating earthquake struck on April 25. More than 7,500 people have died and twice as many as that were injured from the earthquake, which measured 7.8 magnitude.
“Once we realized we were not going to be hurt by the quake, we were just inconvenienced from there,” Glenn said. “The people of Nepal are the ones that are really suffering. A lot of ruined homes, ruined villages. They are needing food and water. That is really hard on that country.”
The Moehlings and Myers returned to the U.S. on May 3. When the earthquake hit, the group was on the seventh day of the hike and a day away from reaching the south base camp, the high expedition point for the final Mt. Everest ascent.
A massive avalanche slammed into the base camp following the earthquake, causing 19 deaths.
“It was just dumb luck that we weren’t there,” Glenn said.
The earthquake hit at 11:56 a.m., Nepal time.
“We knew it was a big earthquake because it almost knocked us off our feet,” Glenn said. “Most of us had to reach for a rock or something else to steady ourselves. The quake lasted 45 seconds. We knew it was a powerful quake. We just didn’t know where it was centered. If you had to pick a spot to be when the earthquake happened, that was the place to be.” Mark agreed.
“We were fortunate,” he said. “It was flat with no buildings or rocks around us.”
Mark, a 2006 Carmel High School graduate who is now an engineer living in Monterrey, Calif., described it as “standing on an ocean of waves.”
The group was two hours away from the next village. When they got there, they saw the hotels, called tea houses, in the village were damaged but they elected to sleep there.
“We had about 90 minutes of WiFi and we got on CNN and realized how bad it was,” Glenn said. “We were able to get out brief text messages to our family. We were then out of contact with them entirely for 48 hours.
“It was scary night because there three aftershocks. It shakes the building. We hauled ourselves out of the building each time figuring what we were going to do next. It was really cold, probably in the upper 20s, so it was not like we were going to sleep outside.”
From there, they knew going to the base camp was not an option so it was a three-day walk to get back to the air strip in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.
Mark will forever remember the people of Nepal.
“After the disaster, it showed their character,” Mark said. “Our guides stuck with us the whole time even though some of their homes were destroyed and they weren’t sure where their families were at. They helped us get out safe. That’s the most memorable part of the trip for me is everyone worked together to make sure everyone else was OK.”
