Incredible video captures Mount Everest avalanche
Incredible amateur video captured the rush of snow and ice barreling toward a camp during last month's earthquake in Nepal.
Jost Kobusch, a 22-year-old mountaineer, said while he's used to shooting videos on his trips, he had no idea that this time, he'd be capturing his own near-death experience, reports CBS News correspondent Anna Werner.
At Everest base camp on the morning of April 25, Kobusch was preparing to continue his climb when he suddenly heard a rumbling from below.
"I was sitting in the dining tent and then the ground started shaking and I went out of the tent and noticed there was an earthquake," Kobusch said. "I took out my iPhone and started filming."
Then, he said, people started running.
"I was asking myself 'Why are they running?' I turned around and I saw what's happening and I was running myself," he said.
What came next, Kobusch said, was a "massive cloud."
"It was like a tsunami made of ice. It was so big I couldn't really see the edges. It was so gigantic. Does it matter if I move now? Does it make a difference?" he said.
He and two fellow climbers huddled behind a tent and gasped for air.
"Once we were over this feeling that we would die now, we looked around and it was like a different world. Everything changed," Kobusch said. "Tents had been blown off, everything was covered with three centimeters solid ice. Everything. Our bodies were covered, everything. It was just complete change it was a different base camp."
He helped the injured climbers until the camp was evacuated. In Kathmandu, Kobusch said he witnessed the true scope of the devastation.
"We realized how big it really was and how small our part of it was, that we were just a few people in the mountains," Kobusch said. "I just felt quite unimportant in that moment. I felt there are other people who need the help more."
Kobusch is back home in Germany now and said he is not afraid of climbing after this brush with death. He is already making plans for his next climbing trip soon.
"You know, when you are very close to death, you appreciate your life much more."