On April 25, 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook Nepal, killing more than 8,800 people, injuring thousands more, leaving 2.5 million people homeless, and triggering massive avalanches on Everest. When the ground began to shake that day, Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita had just sat down to a cup of tea in Gorak Shep, a small town an hour’s walk from Everest Base Camp. She was with an American client, Christopher Wynne, who she had just guided up 20,075-foot Lobuche Peak, and a Sherpa friend, who had been on the mountain when Pasang Lhamu and two other women became the first Nepali women to climb K2—considered the most dangerous mountain in the world. They heard a deafening boom, saw an enormous powder cloud hurtling toward them from the direction of Everest, and rushed to slam their doors against it. The cloud settled and left the town covered in snow. Determined to do what she could to help the victims of the avalanche that had just hit Everest, Pasang Lhamu gathered a group of people and started to hike toward Everest Base Camp.
"Everybody was coming back. People kept saying, 'Where are you guys going? Don't go. It’s very dangerous,'” Pasang Lhamu remembers. “Most of the people [in my group] slowly turned back. Around 3 [p.m.], [there was] another earthquake, [and we heard another] very big boom. And then everybody got scared. Most of the people turned around [until there were only four of us left]. I just kept going."
The following day, she flew back to Kathmandu, the city where she lives with her husband, Tora Akita. Once she established that her husband and his parents were safe, she was ready to take action. In Kathmandu, she found crumbled buildings and streets crowded with families living under tarps. In the hours and weeks that followed the initial quake, the country endured more than 240 aftershocks, leaving people scared to go back inside the remains of their ruined homes.
"I realized that I could have been killed anywhere,” says Pasang Lhamu, who lost both her parents by the time she was 16. “I could have been killed at Everest Base Camp. But I was safe. I survived. There had to be some reason why I survived. I told my husband, ‘We have to do something for the people who are in trouble.'"
This text originally ran on the National Geographic and has been republished with permission. Read the full article about National Geographic's People's Choice Adventurer of the Year here.
