One of five Italian mountaineers
who escaped Saturday's deadly earthquake in Nepal and made it to
a scientific base camp on Mount Everest said Monday their brush
with death was harrowing.
"We stared death in the face," said Vicenza-area native
Mario Vielmo, speaking from the Ev-K2-CNR Association's Pyramid
International Laboratory-Observatory at 5,050 meters altitude on
the Nepal slope of Mount Everest.
The Pyramid Lab was built in 1987 and has become the hub
of an international network of 29 climate-tracking stations.
The other four Italians who escaped death on the mountain
are Claudio Tessarolo and Annalisa Fioretti, both from Vicenza,
Sebastiano Valentini di Canazei from Trento, and Marco Sala,
from the Belluno area.
"We're all fine," Vielmo said. "We've been spared".
Also on Monday, the Ev-K2-CNR Association - a private
scientific association working with Italy's National Research
Center (CNR) - said Sherpa mountain guides reported an
unconfirmed number of people have been swallowed up by ice
crevices that opened between Base Camp and Camp 1 as a result of
the earthquake.
Some two million minors are in need of aid and 30 out of 75
districts of Nepal have been affected by the violent earthquake,
said Save the Children NGO.
As well, the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) has
announced it will allocate three million euros in emergency aid
to be distributed by the Apostolic Nuncio in Nepal, Monsignor
Salvatore Pennacchio.
Meanwhile, Italy as already earmarked hundreds of thousands
of euros for aid to Nepal and has sent a crisis team to the
capital of Kathmandu, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said in
Beijing.
"We'll assess whether the conditions are there for the
recovery of cultural assets," he added.
"But right now we must focus on the missing, the wounded,
and the Italians who are stuck (in Nepal) and are trying to
leave".
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