Decades of predictions by seismologists about an impending ‘big quake’ for Nepal have been proved tragically accurate. At 11.56am on Saturday 25 April, a massive 7.8 magnitude tremor hit the Kathmandu Valley, centred on Gorkha district, just north of the main highway between Kathmandu and Pokhara. In the initial tremor, and in the aftershocks that followed, whole villages were flattened and avalanches and landslides swept over climbers and trekkers. More than 1000 deaths were reported in Kathmandu alone and many of Nepal’s most famous landmarks were reduced to rubble.
