A series of avalanches were triggered off in the HImalayas following the Nepal earthquake. The Mount Everest base camp in Nepal took a severe hit. Nepalese officials have confirmed that 17 people have lost their lives and around 37 have been injured. The casualties include tourists as well the Sherpas who are the local mountaineering experts.
Source : USA Today
Dan Fredinburg who worked as Privacy Manager with Google X is among one of the casualties. Fredinburg, an avid mountaineer, who loved to call himself an ‘adventurer’, succumbed to a severe head injury while two of his other colleagues luckily survived.
Fredinburg had formed the Google Adventure Team , which mapped exotic locations for Google’s Street View tool. The team took 360-degree photos of the summit of Mt. Everest and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, among others.
J agged Globe, the expedition company which had organised the mountaineering expedition sent out its condolences.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Dan’s family and friends,” read a statement on Jagged Globe’s website, “whilst we pray too for all those who have lost their lives in one of the greatest tragedies ever to hit this Himalayan nation.”
Source : Deadline
His friends describe him as charismatic, outspoken and the one who was always the ‘centre of attention’. His sister Megan expressed sincere gratitude to all his friends on twitter.
“This is Dans little sister Megan. I regret to inform all who loved him that during the avalanche on Everest early this morning our Dan suffered from a major head injury and didn’t make it. We appreciate all of the love that has been sent our way thus far and know his soul and his spirit will live on in so many of us. All our love and thanks to those who shared this life with our favorite hilarious strong willed man. He was and is everything to us. Thank you.”
Fredinburg’s boss, Google’s privacy director Lawrence You, said that Google’s crisis response team has launched Person Finder to help victims families locate their loved ones. Google is also working to get updated satellite imagery to help the recovery effort. Google.org is committing $1 million to the response, and the company will offer gift-matching to its employees soon.
The avalanches are said to have been triggered by the recent devastating earthquake in Nepal, India and Bangladesh. A similar landslide had struck the region last year which had led to the cancellation of all mountaineering events. Livelihood of the locals have been severely hit as adventure tourism is the only source of income.
Source : USA Today
