Matt Moniz started to feel the ground shake, and then he saw a wall of snow heading right for him.
The 17-year-old Eagle Scout climber was at a Mount Everest base camp when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Nepal on Saturday, causing an avalanche on the world’s tallest mountain.
More than 4,000 deaths have been confirmed, including at least 18 killed in the Everest avalanche.
Fortunately, Matt and his dad, Mike, are safe. Mike told Scouting Newsroom that his son “was able to take shelter behind a large boulder and was shielded from the powder blast.”
As one would expect with an Eagle Scout, Matt has spent the past two days helping rescue efforts on the mountain.
He shared his stunning story in an interview with the Weather Channel’s AMHQ and host Sam Champion.
“We are definitely pretty rattled, but after we got out of the slide, all the base camp kind of came together and started looking for people who were injured,” he said. “We really got together as a base camp and looked for a lot of people and saved a lot of lives.”
Now Matt and other survivors must wait for helicopters to take them to Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. Matt’s rescue is low priority as injured climbers are being taken off first, so the wait may be long.
Let’s keep Matt, his dad and all of those who were affected by this tragedy in our thoughts and prayers.
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