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IN PHOTO: The body of a victim lies trapped in the debris after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit, in Kathmandu, Nepal April 25, 2015. The powerful earthquake struck Nepal and sent tremors through northern India on Saturday, killing hundreds of people, toppling an historic 19th-century tower in the capital Kathmandu and touching off a deadly avalanche on Mount Everest. REUTERS/Navesh

At least 10 people were killed in an Everest base camp after a massive avalanche had been caused by an earthquake in Nepal. The death toll has now risen to more than 1,800 due to the earthquake.

The earthquake, which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale, killed 3,617 people in Nepal. However, the number of reported deaths has been steeply increasingly. According to the National Emergency Operation Centre, more than 6,500 people have been injured.

British climber Daniel Mazur earlier tweeted about the “massive” earthquake which had hit the Everest. He wrote that the basecamp had been “severely damaged.” He asked everyone to pray for his team which was trapped in camp 1. He tweeted after four hours that the team had felt the earthquake on the north side. He wrote that no damage was done and everyone in the team was safe.

Romanian mountaineer Alex Gavan said that it was a “huge disaster” on the Everest. He requested for rescue helicopters to save the injured in the earthquake. He earlier tweeted that he, though unhurt, was running for life while many people were still up the mountain. He later wrote that many were dead and many more would die if rescue helicopters did not arrive.

Gyanendra Kumar Shrestha from Nepal’s Tourism Ministry in Kathmandu confirmed that there were foreign climbers among the dead. “There might be over 1000 people there right now, including foreign climbers and Nepalese supporting staff,” he said.

Police spokesman Kamal Singh Bam said that rescue efforts were still under way. He said that it was feared that the death toll would rise while the rubble was dug through. He said that deaths had been reported from all parts of the country, except from the far west. All the security personnel were deployed to rescue and assist those in need, he added.

Captain Tim Bradshaw said that his tent had started to "rock and move" during the earthquake. "Then almost like thunder huge boulders started to break around us from the side of the mountain and roll down towards the bottom, towards base camp," the leader of a British Army team said, "We are on the other side of the mountain away from the Nepal side, quite away from the epicentre."

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au

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