The deadly avalanche as it roars down Everest[Youtube]The disaster on Friday is the worst Everest has seen and today survivors recounted scenes of panic and chaos.
Some are still stranded above the collapsed snow waiting until the conditions have settled to dig a route out.
Survivors who are back down the peak described how they dug through snow with their hands and ice axes in hopes of finding their friends alive.
Just minutes before the avalanche hit about 60 Sherpa guides had been backed up along the dangerous Khumbu Icefall - the edge of the edge of a slow-moving glacier known to calve and crack without warning.
They heard the sickening boom of ice breaking above, and then the roar of it coming down around them.
At least 13 are dead, with another three still missing but there is no hope of finding them alive.
The search was suspended on Sunday because of bad weather and there is no word whether it will continue.
"We were sweating, panting, digging for our friends," survivor Cheddar Sherpa said, standing beside his friend's body at the Sherpa monastery in Katmandu, Nepal's capital.
As he helped carry down the injured, he had no idea who might still be alive. "We were terrified," he said.
One of those, Dawa Tashi Sherpa, has been pictured looking bloodied and bruised in photographs taken from his bedside.
He was airlifted to hospital with several broken ribs.
He had told his sister-in-law Dawa Yanju how the wall of snow crashed down on the group in an area at 21,000ft known as the popcorn field.
All of the victims were from Nepal's ethnic Sherpa community, which relies heavily on the country's alpine trekking and climbing industry, with many making a living as climbing guides and others catering to foreign visitors by providing restaurants, equipment or transportation.
Expeditions ferrying foreigners to Everest's peak said they would continue to climb but many guides perished in the tragedy.
At the time of the avalanche, according to Cheddar Sherpa, dozens of Sherpa climbers were carrying tents and equipment to higher elevations in preparation for their foreign clients to ascend next month, when weather conditions are best.
They got caught in a traffic jam behind several Sherpas struggling to fix one of the aluminium ladders laid over the crevasses that cut through the Icefall.
It was a brutal reminder of the risks they take.
"The mountains are a death trap," said Norbu Tshering, a 50-year-old Sherpa and mountain guide who now lives mostly in Katmandu. With his white hair and dark, wrinkled skin, he looked far older than his age. In hands roughened by years of tough work, he worked a string of Buddhist prayer beads.
"But we have no other work, and most of our people take up this profession, which has now become a tradition for all of us," he said.
Meanwhile, several other Sherpas, who had already passed before the avalanche hit, remain stranded above the collapsed Icefall, waiting until a new trail can be dug and new ropes fixed.
It was unclear how long that would take, but Tshering said the group had tents and enough food to last for days.
A survivor is winched off the peak [EPA]The Sherpas go up first to help the foreigners, who pay up to £50,000 per expedition.
They can earn around £2,500 for the busy three-month climbing season - seven times the annual wage in Nepal.
The Sherpas break the deep snow, lay the fixed ropes and carry the heaviest loads. They face avalanches, altitude sickness, lack of oxygen and brutal cold.
"The risks for Sherpas on the mountain are twice that of the Western climbers," said Nima Tenzing, a 30-year-old guide who also runs a shop for trekking gear in Katmandu.
Still, he shows no resentment.
"Death and injury on the mountain is part of our lives now. We have lost many of our people to the mountain. But we have to pull ourselves together and continue our work," he said.
Survivor Dawa Tashi in his hospital bed with several broken ribs [Reuters]Eight climbers were killed, including famed mountaineer Rob Hall.
The incident was turned into a book, "Into Thin Air," by Jon Krakauer. Six Nepalese guides were killed in an avalanche in 1970.
Nearly 250 people, both foreigners and Sherpas, have died trying to reach the world's highest peak, which straddles Nepal and Tibet. About a quarter of them were killed in avalanches, climbing officials say.
More than 4,000 climbers have reached the top of Everest since 1953, when the mountain was first conquered by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.
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