By Steve Casimiro

A massive avalanche struck Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain, in Nepal shortly before 5am this morning, sweeping through teams of climbers and skiers camped at 7000 meters, including South Shore’s Glen Plake and Greg Hill, both of whom survived. Eleven people have been confirmed dead and as many as six are still missing, among them Plake’s teammates Rémy Lécluse and Greg Costa. Reports that Eric Hjorleifson was on Manaslu were untrue; the skier currently is in Canada.

Hill reported on his Facebook page, “A huge avalanche swept through camp 3 at 4:45am on Manaslu, catching lots of people in their sleeping bags, many dead, and injured. Luckily our team is fine, and helped with the rescue, Glen Plake is also fine but my heart goes out to all the others…”

International Mountain Guides has a crew on the mountain and reported that the slide was caused by a serac fall, which was confirmed by Italian mountaineer Silvio Mondinelli.

“IMG Manaslu leader Mike Hamill reports that about 4:30am (local time) a serac fell triggering a slide that hit Camp 3. The IMG team is at Camp 2 and they are all safe and sound. Mike and several other guides are now responding to Camp 3 to assist. We’ll be waiting for more info.”

Garrett Madison, a guide with Alpine Ascents Internation, told Outside, “We counted 11 total deceased or missing,” wrote Madison. “We were able to assist the French and German survivors some who were in pretty bad shape. We made a heli-pad and coordinated a rescue and evac’d about 15 people, and a few bodies. A lot of gear and a few bodies are still up there as the clouds moved in mid-day.”

Plake was swept nearly a thousand feet in his tent, was banged up and lost teeth, but was otherwise OK.

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