wayno wrote: couldnt the climbers wait while the seriously injured were dealt with first
Very tricky in that situation. Some climbers above EBC were getting ill from being quite high as they were doing their acclimatisation rounds and had to descend, plus they were in danger in C1 and C2 on Everest with the risk of avalanches pouring down, and they were running out of supplies. The icefall had collapsed so there was no other way down. Anyway, it was really a matter of picking up whoever they could. As for the more remote areas, much of the terrain in Nepal won't even allow choppers to get in. The weather when the quake hit was very wet with low cloud over much of Langtang and to the west of the capital, hence it made sense to head to the Khumbu area where they could ferry the injured and dead down to the airstrips. Many of the climbers in C1 & C2 were dropped down to EBC and then hiked out whilst the choppers continued down with the more seriously injured. Some of these climbers also stayed there and helped the injured etc. I think it should be noted that the pilots who did those flights were very brave and saved a lot of people (both local and westerners). There was no "proper" way to deal with what happened; it was simply a full-on disaster of epic proportions. The Nepalese and westerners worked together very well in most instances. Also, many of the western climbers were indeed seriously injured (and killed).
Travis22 wrote:if the climbers and private orgs werent there, wouldnt there be a lot less choppers and emergency response people there in the first place?
Travis.
There isn't that many choppers available over there and the "emergency response people" are in fact often the climbers (Nepalese and westerners). Nepal relies on the military and police for much of this and remember EBC is at 5,500m and most of these guys aren't acclimatised for that height.