Aftershock: Everest and the Nepal Earthquake (2022) s01e03 Episode Script
Escape
[soft suspenseful music playing]
[Yaar] It felt like,
"This is my way of helping."
And I thought to myself,
"I can't leave this behind."
I asked Shahar,
"Do you think this is a good idea?"
He said,
"If I were you,
I wouldn't do it."
[Jhangbu] I said, "Don't go to the village
because many houses are destroyed
and many people have died."
"We should go there
only after our villagers come back,
because the people from the village know
what belongs to whom."
[dramatic burst of music]
[Aashis] I see four people
coming up from Langtang Valley,
and I see one of them
carrying a plastic bag.
He said, "We found this money."
Why would you bring money?
It's of no value right now.
It means that you went through stuff
that wasn't yours.
Because I would not personally do this.
If I had to look for food,
if I found something, I'd leave it there.
I would only take
the things that I would need.
[in Nepali] I saw that two of our Israeli
friends were carrying a bag of something
in their hands.
I asked them where they brought it from
and why they brought it.
They told me
that they brought it from the village
and that it belonged to a trekker.
I told them they couldn't be sure of that,
as the money could also be a villager's.
If it's a villager's, it must be returned.
They were reluctant to give me the bag.
When they didn't agree, I snatched it.
[dramatic music playing]
Inside, we found the ID
of one of our villagers.
[Aashis] Finding
the Nepali citizenship card
meant that the money
was from one of the villagers.
I was really scared for the Israeli guy,
because the yellow-jacket guy,
he was really pissed.
You never know what an angry person can do
in that state of mind.
[dramatic drumbeat]
[baby crying]
[indistinct chatter]
[reporter 1] Four days after the quake,
hope is fading
that more survivors will be found
under all this wreckage,
but the search continues.
[reporter 2] Rescue workers there
have been desperately digging
through the rubble,
searching for any signs of life.
[thud]
[man 1] This is a race against time.
It's also a race against a moving target.
[Durga] It's nearly impossible
to survive after four days
especially when the person
is trapped under the rubble.
[drilling]
I mean, if you don't have any access
to clean air or water,
food, I mean,
how many days can you survive?
[drilling]
[Durga] The more delays
you are going to do
the more dead bodies
you are going to count.
[suspenseful music grows]
From where you're standing,
it's a humongous void underneath here.
[machine beeping]
[dog barking]
[Arjun] My youngest daughter
was quite small.
She was waiting
to eat her lunch in another room
when the earthquake occurred.
[man 2] How about I run that
as far as it can in this building?
[man 3] Okay.
[Arjun] I had a strong intuition
that they were alive,
so I was very positive,
and we sped up
the digging process.
[man 2] I think my line's caught.
Somehow, I got it wedged.
[machine beeping]
[Durga] All of a sudden, I got a call
that we have a lead or information
that a person could be alive
under the rubble in Gongabu.
[man 4] Is there a person there?
[man 5] Hold on. Let me check and confirm.
[Durga] Then I asked him,
"Who gave you this information?"
Then he said,
"Sir, we have a small team from the USA."
"They are scouting the whole area."
[man 6] We're gonna run
listening equipment,
and we need everyone
to just be quiet for a few minutes.
[man 2] US 1 and 2,
just hold on one second.
If you guys can be quiet
over there for a second.
[machine beeping]
Don't shuffle. Don't talk.
Just stand perfectly still.
[suspenseful music playing]
[noise quietens]
[alarm blaring in distance]
[dog barking]
[machine beeping]
[dog barking]
[man 2] What's the matter?
There's someone to rescue on this side.
- [man 2] Rescue?
- Yeah, rescue. Here.
[man 2] Do they have a live victim?
[dog barking]
[dramatic music grows]
[dramatic music crescendos]
[music fades]
[soft melancholic music playing]
[Dave Hahn] I don't think
I could have imagined
being in a worse place than sitting
in the bottom of this U-shaped valley,
with 3,000-foot cliffs of rock
and ice towering above us.
[Sara] Damian went to figure out
if we can walk down the mountain.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Sara] And he came back saying,
"It's not safe."
"It is not stable
and we cannot walk down."
"We just have to wait
until we get rescued."
And we asked, "How long?"
And he said, "We don't know."
And that was a very scary moment.
[dramatic drumbeat]
[Damian] It was a serious situation.
We're on an island.
We are on an island. We cannot go down.
[Sara] All of a sudden,
one of our group mates,
he came to our tent and he's like,
"Do you guys want to go up?"
And I'm like, "What?!"
I am doggedly determined.
I-I don't take no for an answer.
If you want to climb Mount Everest,
you need a shitload of cash.
40,000 is about the bare minimum.
You can't get back the money
that you paid into your expedition.
That money had already been spent.
I'm not just gonna give up the dream.
[Sara] I didn't want to go up.
I felt like, mentally,
I'm not ready anymore,
and I didn't want to tell him
that I cannot make it
and I'm not capable of it anymore.
I didn't want to show
that I'm weaker than him.
[nostalgic music playing]
[Sara] I grew up in Iran.
It was a very oppressive,
restrictive environment.
I always pretended
that I'm playing with dolls
and I'm enjoying it.
Really, inside me, I was thinking,
"I'd really prefer
to go biking right now."
[camera shutter clicks]
[Sara] I remember, once,
I climbed this tree
all the way to the top,
and these boys went to my dad and said,
"Sara is wearing shorts,
and girls are not supposed
to wear shorts."
My dad came to me and he said, "Go home!"
And I was like, "This is a setup!"
"I climbed a tree."
"He's jealous of me.
That's why you're sending me back home."
It's frustrating knowing
that you can do so much more,
and you can't.
Because the system doesn't allow you.
[deep rumbling]
[Dave Hahn] Another tremor?
I didn't anticipate
that there would be aftershocks
in the five and six range
on the Richter scale.
- You're okay, you guys.
- [Dave Hahn] Okay.
[woman 1] Remember,
a lot of stuff came down yesterday.
- [man 7] A lot came up yesterday, right?
- Yep. Just take a deep breath.
I know it's scary as shit.
[Dave Hahn] I looked up
at this 3,000-foot cliff of ice and rock,
and I felt like we were too close to it.
Over the years, I'd seen avalanches
come off of that west shoulder
and take out tents at Camp 1.
[Dave] Are we done
accounting for everybody?
[woman 1] Camp 1, we're fine.
[Dave Hahn] Yeah, we got one
that came off of Nuptse.
- Scary, huh?
- [Sara] Yeah.
[Dave] Big sound.
[Sara] Not only sound.
[Pat] You know,
it's kind of moving here and there,
but I knew
that we could salvage something.
Now, I didn't check in with
our expedition leader, but, in my head,
I was ready.
[Phurba] In Sherpa culture,
every mountain signifies God.
We respect mountains
like they're our mother.
If there's no respect,
it becomes difficult.
[Damian] You'd be surprised
what I heard from people,
that they wanted to go to the summit.
"I don't care about anybody else here."
"This summit is very important for me."
"I must summit, no matter what."
"I'm going up Everest.
I don't care what happened."
That's the way they think.
For those people,
there's such a detachment of reality.
[Pat] I felt the ground
going up and down six, eight inches.
[Dave] Yeah. It was moving up and down.
It was like, "This is a big one."
I'm not dying pushing a lawnmower.
I'm gonna die doing something
where I said, "You know what?"
"I crawled over the finish line,
and this is what I got,
and this is my end."
[dramatic music playing]
[music fades]
[soft melancholic music playing]
[Athena] Things had been
dialed up to nine,
and it was only a matter of time
before they went to ten.
I remember
a lot of that tension coming from
just the sternness of everyone's faces,
and the obvious gravity
that they were holding
this particular indiscretion in.
[dramatic music playing]
[Jhangbu] The brother of the person
whose money was taken came,
and I told him what happened.
I told him,
"This guy took your brother's money."
He repeatedly asked me who it was,
so I pointed to them.
[Yuval] And then, suddenly,
I saw two locals
walking up to one of the Israelis
and asking him,
"Who went down to the village?"
"Who took the money?
Where are the Israelis?"
[indistinct shouting]
And then, suddenly,
one of the locals just gives him a shove
and pushes him back.
And that's when violence started.
Our friends picked up rocks.
They did as well.
[shouting]
Stones were thrown,
may there be no mistake.
I got kicked and thrown rocks at.
And I was afraid.
[Shahar in Hebrew] What I saw was chaos.
I saw the Israelis defending themselves.
I looked at the local Nepalis
and I could see a desire for revenge.
[Yuval] And right at that moment,
the most unexpected thing happened.
The Nepali Army came in.
And then they managed, somehow,
God knows how,
to separate the two sides.
[dramatic music fades]
[Jhangbu] Many of our villagers had died.
Our village was destroyed.
Instead of helping us,
they took our money.
Everyone in that situation,
if they had found someone taking money,
would react the same way.
Everyone gets angry.
[Aashis] And the guide said to me,
"Hey, I just lost my mother,
and I just lost two children down there."
"Every bit of penny or cash that I have
is in that house,
and that house is gone."
I-I was like, "Yeah, you're right."
"We absolutely had no right going
down there and getting all their stuff."
[solemn music playing]
[Yaar] With the earthquake and that crazy,
hectic situation that we were in,
that made them act that way,
made me act that way.
My intentions were good.
But I can't change it.
[Yuval] Yaar was devastated
by the situation.
I told him, "Listen, first of all,
you did nothing wrong."
And I was trying to focus him
on what to do next
because this was a survival situation,
and my main goal at that point
was to keep him focused on surviving.
After one moment,
I was most afraid of the earth,
an earthquake, and landslides, and nature.
The next moment, the most terrifying thing
around is humans.
And that was a feeling I've never
I've never experienced before.
Even in the army, you barely get
into a face-to-face situation
where you actually see your enemy's eyes.
I really felt in danger after that.
I really felt as if,
when night comes,
someone's gonna come over with a knife
and try and stab someone to death.
[solemn music fades]
[foreboding music playing]
- [drilling]
- [siren wailing]
[Durga] When I reached the site,
oh my God,
I could see thousands and thousands
of people surrounding that area.
A lot of international
search-and-rescue teams.
[man 2] Did you make it down there?
It's amazing that the US government
has sent us across the world
to help people in need,
and we're here to
to actually help the people.
So it's an amazing feeling.
[Durga] That's when I was called
by the Ministry of Home and I was told,
"We don't want to see any international
search-and-rescue teams taking a lead
in any of these sites."
It's good that everyone wanted to respond,
but most of the time,
I had a difficult time to convince them,
"You should support us."
"You know,
it's not that we are supporting you."
[man 8] Hey! Get out of there!
[shouting]
[Durga] Because I knew my men.
I knew the challenge.
I knew each building
because I spent 20 years in Kathmandu.
I know every nook and corner.
A bit flatter!
I could see the three
search-and-rescue officers,
including Mr. Laxman Basnet.
[man 9] There were lots of guests
in that hotel,
so there might be lots of victims
inside that building.
I asked, "Who's going to take the lead?"
And I said to Mr. Basnet, "Why not you?"
Because I trained him.
I know him personally.
And I knew
if Mr. Basnet cannot do it,
nobody can do it.
[Laxman] We communicated with Arjun,
the owner of the Hotel Bheemeshwori.
He told us his wife
and children were buried inside.
[Arjun in Nepali]
We still had to look for Sangeeta.
We kept shouting her name,
"Sangeeta! Sangeeta! Sangeeta!"
[Kanchi] People were saying that my
daughter and granddaughter were fine.
I also believed that they were all right
and I thought my luck was strong.
[Aashika] There was a rumor
she had been asking for water
and a child was heard crying.
[indistinct chatter]
As I entered,
it was complete darkness inside.
[grunting]
His whole body was inside that pigeonhole.
Because there were
aftershocks continually
[rumbling]
if stones fell, or the building collapsed
some more, or if debris fell,
it wouldn't be just the victim dying.
The rescuer would also die.
[indistinct chatter and shouting]
[Durga] Suddenly, he came out. He said,
"Sir, I can feel a leg
of a person still moving."
So that gave me a glimmer of hope
that a person is alive.
[dramatic drumbeat]
[wind howling]
[Dave] See the guy wire
moving from the tent?
Another tremor.
- Did you feel the ground shaking?
- Oh, yeah.
I think that was a big one,
and that shook something loose
from over on the west shoulder.
Twenty-four hours after the earthquake,
we're sitting inside the tent.
I had all my gear on,
and I was really cold and really weak.
[Dave] We're gonna get a powder shot.
And there's another one
from the other side of the valley.
[indistinct chatter]
And I heard our guide yelling,
"Avalanche! Avalanche!"
[Dave] Here comes the powder blast!
[avalanche roaring]
[Dave] Close your tents up!
[Sara] I panicked,
and I don't know
how I managed to put my helmet on.
I was shaking so badly,
I couldn't clip it.
[gadget beeping]
[Dave] Here comes one
from the other direction.
[roaring]
[beeping]
[Sara] And then I heard
the guide yell again,
"We are safe. We are okay."
And I was like, "Oh, my God."
"I'm not gonna take my helmet off."
"I'm just gonna keep this on
for the rest of my life."
[roaring stops]
[Sara] It was just
a really weird sensation of,
"Nothing is safe."
"Whatever I do,
there is no way I can survive this."
- That was a pretty strong aftershock.
- [Dave] Yeah, that's
I want to say that was in the sixes.
[Dave sighs] Probably.
Yeah, okay.
Powder blast is subsiding.
[Pat] That's when it hit me.
This climb was over.
This was just Mother Nature saying,
"This is not the time to climb me."
Now it wasn't so much of,
"Can we get up to Camp 2?"
But, "Can we actually
get off this mountain?"
It was not clear how.
So, we set up a meeting
with the rest of the team leaders.
I explained to them that there was no way
that we're bringing people
down the mountain.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Dave] Everybody's looking to the leader
in a situation like this,
and people were looking to us
to pretend that we had a strategy.
We knew we had this other solution,
but it wasn't a solution
that any of us felt all that good about.
We knew we could wave
our credit cards in the air
and get helicopters
to come into the Western Cwm,
but I didn't want
any more resources going to us.
I didn't want anything more
getting in the way
of Nepalese being able to help each other.
[Pat] I don't suffer from guilt.
The contemporary pressures
are for us to all feel guilty
that we have any type of privilege,
that we should all be apologetic
for what we have.
I don't feel that way.
I spent a lot of time
looking at every insurance option,
and I paid for the best.
I have a lot to live for.
[solemn music playing]
[Athena] After the fight,
people felt very subdued.
It changed the dynamic.
It turned the Israelis into the pariahs.
Miss, you can tell them
that two portions is one, two.
[Athena] Okay. So
[Jhangbu] The Israelis
didn't behave badly with me after that.
They hesitated even to come near me.
Now there's a line, I can give you
two portions, one, two, then go away.
[Jhangbu] How I found out is
I had brought some food up with the boys.
The Israelis came to receive the food too.
They hung their heads low.
They didn't hold their heads up
or talk to me.
I think they realized
they did something wrong.
[foreboding music playing]
[Shahar in Hebrew] Our sole mission
was to get out of there alive
and hug our families.
It was the only thing
we had in mind at that moment.
[Yuval] I remember myself coming up
to the highest-ranking officer
of the army guys that were there,
and asking,
"You guys understand the situation."
"We need you. We depend on you.
You're not gonna leave us, right?"
"You're not gonna strand us here?
You're gonna take care of us, right?"
I asked him. I needed the reassurance.
And he was like,
"My soldiers are going to stay here."
"They're going to be here
to help and protect you guys."
I was thinking to myself,
"Okay, nighttime is about to come,
but we'll make it through the night."
"The army guys are still here
and it's gonna be okay."
And then the next thing happens.
[dramatic music builds]
[Yuval] I hear a huge chopper
coming towards us.
[Aashis] This army chopper was big,
because they could well take
at least 20 people at a time.
And everyone's hoping,
like, we'd all be getting off.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Yuval] I'm telling
the rest of the Israelis, "Listen,
we all are in the most danger
out of everyone here."
- "We have to get on this chopper."
- [camera shutter clicking]
Suddenly, I see soldiers being pulled
into the helicopter from the crowd.
And at this point,
the helicopter is more than half empty.
More than half empty.
[Aashis] Once the army guys stepped on
the chopper, it started closing its door.
I was looking at it and I was like,
"What's happening?"
[camera shutter clicking]
And suddenly, it just goes up.
And the helicopter starts rising,
and at that point, I completely lost it
because I was thinking to myself,
"God, we're screwed."
[Athena] It was
a tremendous disappointment.
They did leave some noodles.
They did leave some biscuits,
and they took no one but their own.
[Aashis] As that chopper flew away,
my hopes of getting back
were flying away with them.
I felt in despair.
I felt helpless.
[dramatic crescendo]
[Aashis in Nepali] Okay, hopefully,
this is our final day here.
[Aashis] Nobody was coming for us.
And that night, this other group
that we were sharing the room with,
we found out they had some vodka.
[Aashis in Nepali] We survived.
[Aashis] And I'm not
much of a drinker, myself.
I could never drink vodka straight up.
[Aashis in Nepali]
We are here in Langtang, drinking.
We lit a fire. We're having a good time.
[Aashis] There was nothing else
we could do now.
And then we had a few drinks among us,
and I guess that kind of helped us
get through Monday night.
[in Nepali] We should love each other.
We are all Nepali brothers.
[in Hebrew] Ironically, it was
the most beautiful night in Langtang.
It was the first time
the sky had a clear, open view.
Suddenly, I was reminded
of why I am here in the first place,
and how, just a moment ago,
everything was so different to me.
It was, wow, a very powerful moment.
[foreboding music playing]
[horns honking]
[indistinct chatter and shouting]
[man 10 in Nepali]
Here, I have a torch. Here's a light.
[Arjun] When Laxman's team came,
they didn't stop working.
[saw whirring]
Six feet long.
[Durga] Now I had information that
a person could be alive under the rubble.
I said, "Mr. Basnet, can you in any way
make it to the upper body
so that you can feel the chest?"
And he said,
"Okay, I'll try my best again."
He went in again.
[dramatic music grows]
[Durga] Having that lead,
I was still a little bit skeptical
that we would be able
to extract a live person.
I knew the chances
were very little, very bleak.
[grunting]
[Durga] Mr. Basnet, he said,
"Hello? Can you hear me?"
And then they started speaking.
That was when we came to know
the true identity of the person.
[in Nepali] He told me
that his name was Pemba Tamang.
[emotive music playing]
[Arjun in Nepali]
He came to the hotel looking for work.
He was very young.
His parents separated when he was a kid.
The only time he experienced
a loving family home was with us.
[in Nepali] I didn't have any brothers,
so Pemba was like my own brother.
He loved me a lot
and would take me out sometimes.
[indistinct chatter and shouting]
That news went through the crowd
like a wildfire.
Stop rolling.
I'll let you know when he's coming.
[man 11] No, I've got plenty of tape.
[reporter 3] Inside there, there's
a person who's been communicating.
He says he's 15 years old
and his name is Pemba.
Someone who's possibly survived there
under the rubble.
Durga asked me if I could do it.
I told him it was possible,
that I could, we could.
I said, "Okay, but make sure that his head
or his neck is not struck, you know,
in any of the physical obstruction
in between."
Uh "We want to make sure
that he has been extracted alive,
at least until he goes to the hospital."
[Laxman] So I went back in there,
got to where he was,
and held on to his shirt collar.
For about 25 feet,
I struggled and pulled him alone.
[groaning]
As we approached the outside,
my team pulled me and we dragged him out.
[hopeful music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[man 12] Here we go!
Back up, back up!
[indistinct chatter and shouting]
[man 13 in Nepali] You are okay.
Don't panic. Everything is okay.
He was completely shaken.
You know, out of food,
out of water for more than five days,
and he was fragile.
[man 13 in Nepali] Don't panic, brother.
You will be fine. Everything is okay.
I didn't want him to die, you know,
after we pulled him out
from under the rubble.
You know,
that was another critical moment.
[in Nepali] Clear a path!
Clear the path!
Make space! Clear the path!
Let's take him to the hospital.
Let's take him.
[American rescuer] Just wait. All right.
Good job.
[dramatic music playing]
[loud commotion]
- [man shouts]
- [crowd chants back]
[Durga] And then we put him
in the ambulance.
And I told the ambulance guy,
"Don't worry about anything.
Just pull away."
[siren wailing]
[Durga] "And if you don't respond fast,
in any moment, we will lose Mr. Pemba."
[American rescue worker]
Hey, hey! Slow down!
[music fades]
[soft emotive music playing]
[in Nepali] I didn't know what
an earthquake was. It was my first time.
The beam of the house
came down and hit my head.
I fainted.
I was moving my hands around
to see if I could find anything.
People used to sell ghee there,
so I found some jars.
I ate about two fistfuls.
I didn't know if I was dead or alive
when they pulled me out.
[uplifting music playing]
[cheering and applause]
[chanting]
No matter what,
my biggest achievement is Pemba's rescue.
[wild cheering]
[Laxman] That moment gives me energy.
I still get re-energized when I see it.
[shouting and cheering]
There is no other satisfaction
in your entire job
than to pull a person alive, you know,
from the clasp of death.
[Aashika] I heard Pemba had been found
and that he survived on ghee.
I was happy.
Pemba was rescued
and my mother must be close to him,
so I was sure she was also safe.
[Pemba] I called for them.
They were also buried.
I knew they were buried.
I could hear them crying and shouting.
[Laxman] He told us that he had heard two
people, a woman and a kid shouting there.
The challenge now was to find out
where the cries were coming from.
[siren wailing]
[Yuval] So, the morning comes
and the army's gone,
and we're thinking to ourselves,
"Okay, what's next?"
And then the guy with the yellow jacket
gathers everyone.
He says he has an announcement to make.
And he says,
"We, the locals, we're here to stay."
"This is our home.
This is where our families are buried."
"We're staying here."
He pointed towards the Israelis
and he said,
"And the Israelis,
if someone comes to rescue you,
you're not going on any helicopter."
"You're not getting out."
Clear-cut that the locals
would make trouble
for the Israelis to be rescued
as kind of, like, "payback," I guess,
for what happened.
The one thought I had in my mind
was that getting rescued
would be a freaking battle for my life.
And maybe a violent one, potentially.
[Jhangbu] I didn't say
they wouldn't be flying.
I told them they would be flying last,
as they were fit and fine.
I was still angry
because of how they had behaved.
[Yuval] There was no reasoning
with the locals.
And the only resolution in my mind
was a crazy one.
Shahar had this GPS gadget,
and somehow, in the aftermath
of the earthquake and the avalanche,
he manages to find the gadget.
And this thing is our only way
to communicate with the outer world.
As a matter of fact,
we were the only people with the ability
to communicate with the outer world,
which is a huge advantage
in such a situation.
Right after the fight with the locals,
I told Shahar, "Listen,
you have to send over
a message that we're in danger
and that they have to come
and rescue us ASAP."
[Shahar] Yuval told me,
"Not just a rescue,
but we must be rescued
by people with weapons,
as the situation
could deteriorate any minute."
[Yuval] I told him, "Listen,
make sure that there's no chance in hell
that anyone that comes here isn't armed,
because it's such an explosive situation."
[producer in Nepali] Did you know
that the Israelis had a satellite device?
[Jhangbu] I didn't know about that.
It is a remote area. There is no way
to communicate with anyone.
Everyone was really disturbed then.
Not only locals,
but even the guides and porters were
wishing they could contact their families.
They wanted to know their condition
and let them know they're alive.
They could have at least mentioned
that they had a way of communicating
if we required it,
even for the sake of humanity.
I think they are really selfish people.
They are sinful.
[solemn music playing]
[Dave] It looks different.
It felt like a big plateau.
Yeah, exactly.
- [Dave] We couldn't see much.
- You couldn't see.
[Dave] It became obvious
with the aftershocks
that we couldn't ask anybody
to go into the icefall
to rebuild the route,
and we couldn't let
a good flying day go by
without taking advantage.
We couldn't hem and haw and say,
"Well, is it ethically correct
to get a rescue going
when so many must need help?"
Uh No, we needed
to pull the trigger on this.
[Damian] The conclusion was
that we needed to come up with
a major evacuation plan by helicopter.
When shit hits the fan, call Maurizio.
[man 14 in Italian]
When you fly at high altitudes,
there's a reduction in performance.
We are really flying at the limit.
[Dave] A helicopter rescue at 20,000 feet
didn't used to be possible.
Flying in the mountains
is still inherently very dangerous.
To fly that many people out
had many of us wondering
how it could possibly get done
without something going wrong.
[Maurizio in Italian] I was aware
of the fact that, at that altitude,
we could rescue
a maximum of three people at a time.
[dramatic music grows]
[helicopter blades whirring]
[Damian]
One of the biggest issues was that
there were more than 150 people
on the mountain.
Who goes first?
Who goes last?
[Sara] There was a line of people
waiting for the helicopter.
And they said, "Women first."
And I was so excited.
I was like,
this is the very first time in my life
I'm a woman
and I'm happy I'm a woman. [laughing]
[Sara] They threw us into the helicopter.
The helicopter didn't have any chairs.
They took off all the chairs.
I was very thankful
that they finally came for us.
It was one of the most beautiful flights
of my life.
[pilot speaking over radio]
[Sara] All of the crevasses
that we crossed two days before,
they were right there,
we were watching them.
And in five minutes,
we were in the base camp.
[Dave] Where they were choosing
to use as a landing pad
was the center of the blast zone
because that made a good helipad now.
Getting out of the helicopter,
you would think there would have been
some high fives or some celebrating,
and it was just the opposite of that.
It was just a very solemn
and sad occasion.
You finally understood
the scope of the destruction.
[solemn music playing]
[Pat] I hopped off the helicopter
and I looked around,
and I was curious to see
the landmarks that we had,
because all the landmarks were tents.
And none of them were there.
It-it looked like a bomb went off.
[Sara] It felt like a graveyard.
People had blood on their jackets,
and you didn't want to ask them,
"Where is this coming from?"
And there were those blue tarps there,
like, next to each other,
and the size of the blue tarps
were like the size of a person lying down.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Sara] One of the climbers told me
that these are all the bodies
that are waiting for the helicopter
to take them down the mountain.
[Dave] We finally understood
what this disaster had been.
If you were in the wrong place
at Everest Base Camp
when that blast came through
there was nothing that was gonna help you.
And that we'd been extremely lucky
up there at Camp 1.
[dramatic music grows]
[man 15] At first, when I saw
the messages from Shahar,
they were really disturbing.
It was messages about violence.
And they asked if we can come armed,
which is really unique.
This is not acute mountain sickness.
This is not hypothermia.
This is not what I know.
So you have to think out of the box
and understand
that you have to do something urgently.
[dramatic music playing]
[music fades]
We were getting messages from Israel
that rescue's on its way,
it's a matter of hours.
[helicopter blades whirring]
Then, suddenly,
I see a helicopter in the distance.
And a few hundred meters away,
this helicopter lands.
Out of this helicopter,
some guy jumps out.
And I look at this guy
in the distance and I see,
"Okay, he's wearing shorts,
he's wearing a T-shirt."
And I'm looking at him,
and I'm looking for his gun.
And this guy comes in,
and everybody's around him,
and everyone's expecting
to hear what he has to say.
And then he says a sentence
which I'll never forget. He says
"My name is Yochai."
"I'm from Israel,
and I came to help everyone."
"came to help everyone."
In one second, with one sentence,
the whole tension drops flat.
The second everyone felt like we're all
going to be rescued and believed in it,
then there was nothing to fight over.
[Yochai] I think, to defuse a situation,
the best way is to have
a very, very, very strong tool,
which is hope.
[Athena] He said, "As long as the clouds
hold, as long as they don't come in,
anyone who wants to leave will leave."
It didn't feel real.
It didn't feel real
that someone could just appear.
It just seemed
It seemed too easy. [chuckles]
[Shahar] That was very joyful.
I remember trying to hide my smile,
um but I couldn't.
It was the realization that this is over.
[Yochai] After that speech,
I, uh, spoke with the guy
with the yellow jacket,
and, uh, I promised him
that the first helicopter will be for him.
[Jhangbu] I asked him if he could request
other helicopters to come,
as lots of people were injured there
and needed to be rescued.
[Yuval] Yochai came in
with a satellite phone,
and that satellite phone
was more powerful than any gun
because that satellite phone
gave everybody hope.
[helicopter blades whirring]
[Yochai] Once defused this situation,
everything is more calm
and it's about bringing more helicopters
just to evacuate.
[Athena] Getting on that helicopter,
I mean, I was ecstatic.
The second that the door was closed,
everyone cheered.
And then, a moment later,
it was like being punched in the heart.
And it was a really sober trip from there
to further down the valley,
especially as we passed over
the site of Langtang village.
[Jhangbu] Before the earthquake,
from a helicopter,
the landscape looked so beautiful.
The houses were beautiful.
There were villages.
My heart was crying inside.
I just didn't cry out loud.
I couldn't handle my heart.
[Yuval] I wish I would have been
more respectful
to the locals and their tragedy,
more aware of the tremendous pain
and the consequences
of going down to the village.
[Yaar] I misinterpreted
what had to be done there.
How can you comprehend
the magnitude of it
how much pain was involved in it?
I can't.
[melancholic music playing]
[Laxman] After the crowd lifted me,
we got back because Pemba said
there could be two more people down there.
He said he had heard them shouting.
So we went back to the worksite
and started searching again.
[Arjun] It wasn't possible to dig by hand,
as three to four stories
were piled up against each other.
We had to dig it with a dozer.
After a day of searching
we stopped hearing voices,
even though we shouted for them.
After that,
I felt she was no longer alive.
She was gone.
Then we found Sangeeta,
my brother's son and my youngest daughter.
She was carrying my brother's son
and holding our daughter
as they tried to run.
[in Nepali] I was eating dinner
and my uncle came by.
He didn't say anything
until I finished dinner.
Then he said
that they had found my mother.
He told me that she was no more
and asked if we wanted to visit.
I didn't go. I couldn't.
I didn't know what happened.
Everyone was numb.
My grandmother was crying [sobs]
[crying]
[Arjun] Even after I found
Sangeeta's body,
I couldn't fathom that she was dead.
It felt unreal.
I wish I was there
and would have died with Sangeeta.
Maybe if we had died together,
we would meet each other again.
[sobbing]
[sobbing]
I miss her.
[sobbing]
[soft melancholic music playing]
I can't believe this is happening.
[Jhangbu] Hello.
[all] Hi!
[Yaar] It felt like,
"This is my way of helping."
And I thought to myself,
"I can't leave this behind."
I asked Shahar,
"Do you think this is a good idea?"
He said,
"If I were you,
I wouldn't do it."
[Jhangbu] I said, "Don't go to the village
because many houses are destroyed
and many people have died."
"We should go there
only after our villagers come back,
because the people from the village know
what belongs to whom."
[dramatic burst of music]
[Aashis] I see four people
coming up from Langtang Valley,
and I see one of them
carrying a plastic bag.
He said, "We found this money."
Why would you bring money?
It's of no value right now.
It means that you went through stuff
that wasn't yours.
Because I would not personally do this.
If I had to look for food,
if I found something, I'd leave it there.
I would only take
the things that I would need.
[in Nepali] I saw that two of our Israeli
friends were carrying a bag of something
in their hands.
I asked them where they brought it from
and why they brought it.
They told me
that they brought it from the village
and that it belonged to a trekker.
I told them they couldn't be sure of that,
as the money could also be a villager's.
If it's a villager's, it must be returned.
They were reluctant to give me the bag.
When they didn't agree, I snatched it.
[dramatic music playing]
Inside, we found the ID
of one of our villagers.
[Aashis] Finding
the Nepali citizenship card
meant that the money
was from one of the villagers.
I was really scared for the Israeli guy,
because the yellow-jacket guy,
he was really pissed.
You never know what an angry person can do
in that state of mind.
[dramatic drumbeat]
[baby crying]
[indistinct chatter]
[reporter 1] Four days after the quake,
hope is fading
that more survivors will be found
under all this wreckage,
but the search continues.
[reporter 2] Rescue workers there
have been desperately digging
through the rubble,
searching for any signs of life.
[thud]
[man 1] This is a race against time.
It's also a race against a moving target.
[Durga] It's nearly impossible
to survive after four days
especially when the person
is trapped under the rubble.
[drilling]
I mean, if you don't have any access
to clean air or water,
food, I mean,
how many days can you survive?
[drilling]
[Durga] The more delays
you are going to do
the more dead bodies
you are going to count.
[suspenseful music grows]
From where you're standing,
it's a humongous void underneath here.
[machine beeping]
[dog barking]
[Arjun] My youngest daughter
was quite small.
She was waiting
to eat her lunch in another room
when the earthquake occurred.
[man 2] How about I run that
as far as it can in this building?
[man 3] Okay.
[Arjun] I had a strong intuition
that they were alive,
so I was very positive,
and we sped up
the digging process.
[man 2] I think my line's caught.
Somehow, I got it wedged.
[machine beeping]
[Durga] All of a sudden, I got a call
that we have a lead or information
that a person could be alive
under the rubble in Gongabu.
[man 4] Is there a person there?
[man 5] Hold on. Let me check and confirm.
[Durga] Then I asked him,
"Who gave you this information?"
Then he said,
"Sir, we have a small team from the USA."
"They are scouting the whole area."
[man 6] We're gonna run
listening equipment,
and we need everyone
to just be quiet for a few minutes.
[man 2] US 1 and 2,
just hold on one second.
If you guys can be quiet
over there for a second.
[machine beeping]
Don't shuffle. Don't talk.
Just stand perfectly still.
[suspenseful music playing]
[noise quietens]
[alarm blaring in distance]
[dog barking]
[machine beeping]
[dog barking]
[man 2] What's the matter?
There's someone to rescue on this side.
- [man 2] Rescue?
- Yeah, rescue. Here.
[man 2] Do they have a live victim?
[dog barking]
[dramatic music grows]
[dramatic music crescendos]
[music fades]
[soft melancholic music playing]
[Dave Hahn] I don't think
I could have imagined
being in a worse place than sitting
in the bottom of this U-shaped valley,
with 3,000-foot cliffs of rock
and ice towering above us.
[Sara] Damian went to figure out
if we can walk down the mountain.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Sara] And he came back saying,
"It's not safe."
"It is not stable
and we cannot walk down."
"We just have to wait
until we get rescued."
And we asked, "How long?"
And he said, "We don't know."
And that was a very scary moment.
[dramatic drumbeat]
[Damian] It was a serious situation.
We're on an island.
We are on an island. We cannot go down.
[Sara] All of a sudden,
one of our group mates,
he came to our tent and he's like,
"Do you guys want to go up?"
And I'm like, "What?!"
I am doggedly determined.
I-I don't take no for an answer.
If you want to climb Mount Everest,
you need a shitload of cash.
40,000 is about the bare minimum.
You can't get back the money
that you paid into your expedition.
That money had already been spent.
I'm not just gonna give up the dream.
[Sara] I didn't want to go up.
I felt like, mentally,
I'm not ready anymore,
and I didn't want to tell him
that I cannot make it
and I'm not capable of it anymore.
I didn't want to show
that I'm weaker than him.
[nostalgic music playing]
[Sara] I grew up in Iran.
It was a very oppressive,
restrictive environment.
I always pretended
that I'm playing with dolls
and I'm enjoying it.
Really, inside me, I was thinking,
"I'd really prefer
to go biking right now."
[camera shutter clicks]
[Sara] I remember, once,
I climbed this tree
all the way to the top,
and these boys went to my dad and said,
"Sara is wearing shorts,
and girls are not supposed
to wear shorts."
My dad came to me and he said, "Go home!"
And I was like, "This is a setup!"
"I climbed a tree."
"He's jealous of me.
That's why you're sending me back home."
It's frustrating knowing
that you can do so much more,
and you can't.
Because the system doesn't allow you.
[deep rumbling]
[Dave Hahn] Another tremor?
I didn't anticipate
that there would be aftershocks
in the five and six range
on the Richter scale.
- You're okay, you guys.
- [Dave Hahn] Okay.
[woman 1] Remember,
a lot of stuff came down yesterday.
- [man 7] A lot came up yesterday, right?
- Yep. Just take a deep breath.
I know it's scary as shit.
[Dave Hahn] I looked up
at this 3,000-foot cliff of ice and rock,
and I felt like we were too close to it.
Over the years, I'd seen avalanches
come off of that west shoulder
and take out tents at Camp 1.
[Dave] Are we done
accounting for everybody?
[woman 1] Camp 1, we're fine.
[Dave Hahn] Yeah, we got one
that came off of Nuptse.
- Scary, huh?
- [Sara] Yeah.
[Dave] Big sound.
[Sara] Not only sound.
[Pat] You know,
it's kind of moving here and there,
but I knew
that we could salvage something.
Now, I didn't check in with
our expedition leader, but, in my head,
I was ready.
[Phurba] In Sherpa culture,
every mountain signifies God.
We respect mountains
like they're our mother.
If there's no respect,
it becomes difficult.
[Damian] You'd be surprised
what I heard from people,
that they wanted to go to the summit.
"I don't care about anybody else here."
"This summit is very important for me."
"I must summit, no matter what."
"I'm going up Everest.
I don't care what happened."
That's the way they think.
For those people,
there's such a detachment of reality.
[Pat] I felt the ground
going up and down six, eight inches.
[Dave] Yeah. It was moving up and down.
It was like, "This is a big one."
I'm not dying pushing a lawnmower.
I'm gonna die doing something
where I said, "You know what?"
"I crawled over the finish line,
and this is what I got,
and this is my end."
[dramatic music playing]
[music fades]
[soft melancholic music playing]
[Athena] Things had been
dialed up to nine,
and it was only a matter of time
before they went to ten.
I remember
a lot of that tension coming from
just the sternness of everyone's faces,
and the obvious gravity
that they were holding
this particular indiscretion in.
[dramatic music playing]
[Jhangbu] The brother of the person
whose money was taken came,
and I told him what happened.
I told him,
"This guy took your brother's money."
He repeatedly asked me who it was,
so I pointed to them.
[Yuval] And then, suddenly,
I saw two locals
walking up to one of the Israelis
and asking him,
"Who went down to the village?"
"Who took the money?
Where are the Israelis?"
[indistinct shouting]
And then, suddenly,
one of the locals just gives him a shove
and pushes him back.
And that's when violence started.
Our friends picked up rocks.
They did as well.
[shouting]
Stones were thrown,
may there be no mistake.
I got kicked and thrown rocks at.
And I was afraid.
[Shahar in Hebrew] What I saw was chaos.
I saw the Israelis defending themselves.
I looked at the local Nepalis
and I could see a desire for revenge.
[Yuval] And right at that moment,
the most unexpected thing happened.
The Nepali Army came in.
And then they managed, somehow,
God knows how,
to separate the two sides.
[dramatic music fades]
[Jhangbu] Many of our villagers had died.
Our village was destroyed.
Instead of helping us,
they took our money.
Everyone in that situation,
if they had found someone taking money,
would react the same way.
Everyone gets angry.
[Aashis] And the guide said to me,
"Hey, I just lost my mother,
and I just lost two children down there."
"Every bit of penny or cash that I have
is in that house,
and that house is gone."
I-I was like, "Yeah, you're right."
"We absolutely had no right going
down there and getting all their stuff."
[solemn music playing]
[Yaar] With the earthquake and that crazy,
hectic situation that we were in,
that made them act that way,
made me act that way.
My intentions were good.
But I can't change it.
[Yuval] Yaar was devastated
by the situation.
I told him, "Listen, first of all,
you did nothing wrong."
And I was trying to focus him
on what to do next
because this was a survival situation,
and my main goal at that point
was to keep him focused on surviving.
After one moment,
I was most afraid of the earth,
an earthquake, and landslides, and nature.
The next moment, the most terrifying thing
around is humans.
And that was a feeling I've never
I've never experienced before.
Even in the army, you barely get
into a face-to-face situation
where you actually see your enemy's eyes.
I really felt in danger after that.
I really felt as if,
when night comes,
someone's gonna come over with a knife
and try and stab someone to death.
[solemn music fades]
[foreboding music playing]
- [drilling]
- [siren wailing]
[Durga] When I reached the site,
oh my God,
I could see thousands and thousands
of people surrounding that area.
A lot of international
search-and-rescue teams.
[man 2] Did you make it down there?
It's amazing that the US government
has sent us across the world
to help people in need,
and we're here to
to actually help the people.
So it's an amazing feeling.
[Durga] That's when I was called
by the Ministry of Home and I was told,
"We don't want to see any international
search-and-rescue teams taking a lead
in any of these sites."
It's good that everyone wanted to respond,
but most of the time,
I had a difficult time to convince them,
"You should support us."
"You know,
it's not that we are supporting you."
[man 8] Hey! Get out of there!
[shouting]
[Durga] Because I knew my men.
I knew the challenge.
I knew each building
because I spent 20 years in Kathmandu.
I know every nook and corner.
A bit flatter!
I could see the three
search-and-rescue officers,
including Mr. Laxman Basnet.
[man 9] There were lots of guests
in that hotel,
so there might be lots of victims
inside that building.
I asked, "Who's going to take the lead?"
And I said to Mr. Basnet, "Why not you?"
Because I trained him.
I know him personally.
And I knew
if Mr. Basnet cannot do it,
nobody can do it.
[Laxman] We communicated with Arjun,
the owner of the Hotel Bheemeshwori.
He told us his wife
and children were buried inside.
[Arjun in Nepali]
We still had to look for Sangeeta.
We kept shouting her name,
"Sangeeta! Sangeeta! Sangeeta!"
[Kanchi] People were saying that my
daughter and granddaughter were fine.
I also believed that they were all right
and I thought my luck was strong.
[Aashika] There was a rumor
she had been asking for water
and a child was heard crying.
[indistinct chatter]
As I entered,
it was complete darkness inside.
[grunting]
His whole body was inside that pigeonhole.
Because there were
aftershocks continually
[rumbling]
if stones fell, or the building collapsed
some more, or if debris fell,
it wouldn't be just the victim dying.
The rescuer would also die.
[indistinct chatter and shouting]
[Durga] Suddenly, he came out. He said,
"Sir, I can feel a leg
of a person still moving."
So that gave me a glimmer of hope
that a person is alive.
[dramatic drumbeat]
[wind howling]
[Dave] See the guy wire
moving from the tent?
Another tremor.
- Did you feel the ground shaking?
- Oh, yeah.
I think that was a big one,
and that shook something loose
from over on the west shoulder.
Twenty-four hours after the earthquake,
we're sitting inside the tent.
I had all my gear on,
and I was really cold and really weak.
[Dave] We're gonna get a powder shot.
And there's another one
from the other side of the valley.
[indistinct chatter]
And I heard our guide yelling,
"Avalanche! Avalanche!"
[Dave] Here comes the powder blast!
[avalanche roaring]
[Dave] Close your tents up!
[Sara] I panicked,
and I don't know
how I managed to put my helmet on.
I was shaking so badly,
I couldn't clip it.
[gadget beeping]
[Dave] Here comes one
from the other direction.
[roaring]
[beeping]
[Sara] And then I heard
the guide yell again,
"We are safe. We are okay."
And I was like, "Oh, my God."
"I'm not gonna take my helmet off."
"I'm just gonna keep this on
for the rest of my life."
[roaring stops]
[Sara] It was just
a really weird sensation of,
"Nothing is safe."
"Whatever I do,
there is no way I can survive this."
- That was a pretty strong aftershock.
- [Dave] Yeah, that's
I want to say that was in the sixes.
[Dave sighs] Probably.
Yeah, okay.
Powder blast is subsiding.
[Pat] That's when it hit me.
This climb was over.
This was just Mother Nature saying,
"This is not the time to climb me."
Now it wasn't so much of,
"Can we get up to Camp 2?"
But, "Can we actually
get off this mountain?"
It was not clear how.
So, we set up a meeting
with the rest of the team leaders.
I explained to them that there was no way
that we're bringing people
down the mountain.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Dave] Everybody's looking to the leader
in a situation like this,
and people were looking to us
to pretend that we had a strategy.
We knew we had this other solution,
but it wasn't a solution
that any of us felt all that good about.
We knew we could wave
our credit cards in the air
and get helicopters
to come into the Western Cwm,
but I didn't want
any more resources going to us.
I didn't want anything more
getting in the way
of Nepalese being able to help each other.
[Pat] I don't suffer from guilt.
The contemporary pressures
are for us to all feel guilty
that we have any type of privilege,
that we should all be apologetic
for what we have.
I don't feel that way.
I spent a lot of time
looking at every insurance option,
and I paid for the best.
I have a lot to live for.
[solemn music playing]
[Athena] After the fight,
people felt very subdued.
It changed the dynamic.
It turned the Israelis into the pariahs.
Miss, you can tell them
that two portions is one, two.
[Athena] Okay. So
[Jhangbu] The Israelis
didn't behave badly with me after that.
They hesitated even to come near me.
Now there's a line, I can give you
two portions, one, two, then go away.
[Jhangbu] How I found out is
I had brought some food up with the boys.
The Israelis came to receive the food too.
They hung their heads low.
They didn't hold their heads up
or talk to me.
I think they realized
they did something wrong.
[foreboding music playing]
[Shahar in Hebrew] Our sole mission
was to get out of there alive
and hug our families.
It was the only thing
we had in mind at that moment.
[Yuval] I remember myself coming up
to the highest-ranking officer
of the army guys that were there,
and asking,
"You guys understand the situation."
"We need you. We depend on you.
You're not gonna leave us, right?"
"You're not gonna strand us here?
You're gonna take care of us, right?"
I asked him. I needed the reassurance.
And he was like,
"My soldiers are going to stay here."
"They're going to be here
to help and protect you guys."
I was thinking to myself,
"Okay, nighttime is about to come,
but we'll make it through the night."
"The army guys are still here
and it's gonna be okay."
And then the next thing happens.
[dramatic music builds]
[Yuval] I hear a huge chopper
coming towards us.
[Aashis] This army chopper was big,
because they could well take
at least 20 people at a time.
And everyone's hoping,
like, we'd all be getting off.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Yuval] I'm telling
the rest of the Israelis, "Listen,
we all are in the most danger
out of everyone here."
- "We have to get on this chopper."
- [camera shutter clicking]
Suddenly, I see soldiers being pulled
into the helicopter from the crowd.
And at this point,
the helicopter is more than half empty.
More than half empty.
[Aashis] Once the army guys stepped on
the chopper, it started closing its door.
I was looking at it and I was like,
"What's happening?"
[camera shutter clicking]
And suddenly, it just goes up.
And the helicopter starts rising,
and at that point, I completely lost it
because I was thinking to myself,
"God, we're screwed."
[Athena] It was
a tremendous disappointment.
They did leave some noodles.
They did leave some biscuits,
and they took no one but their own.
[Aashis] As that chopper flew away,
my hopes of getting back
were flying away with them.
I felt in despair.
I felt helpless.
[dramatic crescendo]
[Aashis in Nepali] Okay, hopefully,
this is our final day here.
[Aashis] Nobody was coming for us.
And that night, this other group
that we were sharing the room with,
we found out they had some vodka.
[Aashis in Nepali] We survived.
[Aashis] And I'm not
much of a drinker, myself.
I could never drink vodka straight up.
[Aashis in Nepali]
We are here in Langtang, drinking.
We lit a fire. We're having a good time.
[Aashis] There was nothing else
we could do now.
And then we had a few drinks among us,
and I guess that kind of helped us
get through Monday night.
[in Nepali] We should love each other.
We are all Nepali brothers.
[in Hebrew] Ironically, it was
the most beautiful night in Langtang.
It was the first time
the sky had a clear, open view.
Suddenly, I was reminded
of why I am here in the first place,
and how, just a moment ago,
everything was so different to me.
It was, wow, a very powerful moment.
[foreboding music playing]
[horns honking]
[indistinct chatter and shouting]
[man 10 in Nepali]
Here, I have a torch. Here's a light.
[Arjun] When Laxman's team came,
they didn't stop working.
[saw whirring]
Six feet long.
[Durga] Now I had information that
a person could be alive under the rubble.
I said, "Mr. Basnet, can you in any way
make it to the upper body
so that you can feel the chest?"
And he said,
"Okay, I'll try my best again."
He went in again.
[dramatic music grows]
[Durga] Having that lead,
I was still a little bit skeptical
that we would be able
to extract a live person.
I knew the chances
were very little, very bleak.
[grunting]
[Durga] Mr. Basnet, he said,
"Hello? Can you hear me?"
And then they started speaking.
That was when we came to know
the true identity of the person.
[in Nepali] He told me
that his name was Pemba Tamang.
[emotive music playing]
[Arjun in Nepali]
He came to the hotel looking for work.
He was very young.
His parents separated when he was a kid.
The only time he experienced
a loving family home was with us.
[in Nepali] I didn't have any brothers,
so Pemba was like my own brother.
He loved me a lot
and would take me out sometimes.
[indistinct chatter and shouting]
That news went through the crowd
like a wildfire.
Stop rolling.
I'll let you know when he's coming.
[man 11] No, I've got plenty of tape.
[reporter 3] Inside there, there's
a person who's been communicating.
He says he's 15 years old
and his name is Pemba.
Someone who's possibly survived there
under the rubble.
Durga asked me if I could do it.
I told him it was possible,
that I could, we could.
I said, "Okay, but make sure that his head
or his neck is not struck, you know,
in any of the physical obstruction
in between."
Uh "We want to make sure
that he has been extracted alive,
at least until he goes to the hospital."
[Laxman] So I went back in there,
got to where he was,
and held on to his shirt collar.
For about 25 feet,
I struggled and pulled him alone.
[groaning]
As we approached the outside,
my team pulled me and we dragged him out.
[hopeful music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[man 12] Here we go!
Back up, back up!
[indistinct chatter and shouting]
[man 13 in Nepali] You are okay.
Don't panic. Everything is okay.
He was completely shaken.
You know, out of food,
out of water for more than five days,
and he was fragile.
[man 13 in Nepali] Don't panic, brother.
You will be fine. Everything is okay.
I didn't want him to die, you know,
after we pulled him out
from under the rubble.
You know,
that was another critical moment.
[in Nepali] Clear a path!
Clear the path!
Make space! Clear the path!
Let's take him to the hospital.
Let's take him.
[American rescuer] Just wait. All right.
Good job.
[dramatic music playing]
[loud commotion]
- [man shouts]
- [crowd chants back]
[Durga] And then we put him
in the ambulance.
And I told the ambulance guy,
"Don't worry about anything.
Just pull away."
[siren wailing]
[Durga] "And if you don't respond fast,
in any moment, we will lose Mr. Pemba."
[American rescue worker]
Hey, hey! Slow down!
[music fades]
[soft emotive music playing]
[in Nepali] I didn't know what
an earthquake was. It was my first time.
The beam of the house
came down and hit my head.
I fainted.
I was moving my hands around
to see if I could find anything.
People used to sell ghee there,
so I found some jars.
I ate about two fistfuls.
I didn't know if I was dead or alive
when they pulled me out.
[uplifting music playing]
[cheering and applause]
[chanting]
No matter what,
my biggest achievement is Pemba's rescue.
[wild cheering]
[Laxman] That moment gives me energy.
I still get re-energized when I see it.
[shouting and cheering]
There is no other satisfaction
in your entire job
than to pull a person alive, you know,
from the clasp of death.
[Aashika] I heard Pemba had been found
and that he survived on ghee.
I was happy.
Pemba was rescued
and my mother must be close to him,
so I was sure she was also safe.
[Pemba] I called for them.
They were also buried.
I knew they were buried.
I could hear them crying and shouting.
[Laxman] He told us that he had heard two
people, a woman and a kid shouting there.
The challenge now was to find out
where the cries were coming from.
[siren wailing]
[Yuval] So, the morning comes
and the army's gone,
and we're thinking to ourselves,
"Okay, what's next?"
And then the guy with the yellow jacket
gathers everyone.
He says he has an announcement to make.
And he says,
"We, the locals, we're here to stay."
"This is our home.
This is where our families are buried."
"We're staying here."
He pointed towards the Israelis
and he said,
"And the Israelis,
if someone comes to rescue you,
you're not going on any helicopter."
"You're not getting out."
Clear-cut that the locals
would make trouble
for the Israelis to be rescued
as kind of, like, "payback," I guess,
for what happened.
The one thought I had in my mind
was that getting rescued
would be a freaking battle for my life.
And maybe a violent one, potentially.
[Jhangbu] I didn't say
they wouldn't be flying.
I told them they would be flying last,
as they were fit and fine.
I was still angry
because of how they had behaved.
[Yuval] There was no reasoning
with the locals.
And the only resolution in my mind
was a crazy one.
Shahar had this GPS gadget,
and somehow, in the aftermath
of the earthquake and the avalanche,
he manages to find the gadget.
And this thing is our only way
to communicate with the outer world.
As a matter of fact,
we were the only people with the ability
to communicate with the outer world,
which is a huge advantage
in such a situation.
Right after the fight with the locals,
I told Shahar, "Listen,
you have to send over
a message that we're in danger
and that they have to come
and rescue us ASAP."
[Shahar] Yuval told me,
"Not just a rescue,
but we must be rescued
by people with weapons,
as the situation
could deteriorate any minute."
[Yuval] I told him, "Listen,
make sure that there's no chance in hell
that anyone that comes here isn't armed,
because it's such an explosive situation."
[producer in Nepali] Did you know
that the Israelis had a satellite device?
[Jhangbu] I didn't know about that.
It is a remote area. There is no way
to communicate with anyone.
Everyone was really disturbed then.
Not only locals,
but even the guides and porters were
wishing they could contact their families.
They wanted to know their condition
and let them know they're alive.
They could have at least mentioned
that they had a way of communicating
if we required it,
even for the sake of humanity.
I think they are really selfish people.
They are sinful.
[solemn music playing]
[Dave] It looks different.
It felt like a big plateau.
Yeah, exactly.
- [Dave] We couldn't see much.
- You couldn't see.
[Dave] It became obvious
with the aftershocks
that we couldn't ask anybody
to go into the icefall
to rebuild the route,
and we couldn't let
a good flying day go by
without taking advantage.
We couldn't hem and haw and say,
"Well, is it ethically correct
to get a rescue going
when so many must need help?"
Uh No, we needed
to pull the trigger on this.
[Damian] The conclusion was
that we needed to come up with
a major evacuation plan by helicopter.
When shit hits the fan, call Maurizio.
[man 14 in Italian]
When you fly at high altitudes,
there's a reduction in performance.
We are really flying at the limit.
[Dave] A helicopter rescue at 20,000 feet
didn't used to be possible.
Flying in the mountains
is still inherently very dangerous.
To fly that many people out
had many of us wondering
how it could possibly get done
without something going wrong.
[Maurizio in Italian] I was aware
of the fact that, at that altitude,
we could rescue
a maximum of three people at a time.
[dramatic music grows]
[helicopter blades whirring]
[Damian]
One of the biggest issues was that
there were more than 150 people
on the mountain.
Who goes first?
Who goes last?
[Sara] There was a line of people
waiting for the helicopter.
And they said, "Women first."
And I was so excited.
I was like,
this is the very first time in my life
I'm a woman
and I'm happy I'm a woman. [laughing]
[Sara] They threw us into the helicopter.
The helicopter didn't have any chairs.
They took off all the chairs.
I was very thankful
that they finally came for us.
It was one of the most beautiful flights
of my life.
[pilot speaking over radio]
[Sara] All of the crevasses
that we crossed two days before,
they were right there,
we were watching them.
And in five minutes,
we were in the base camp.
[Dave] Where they were choosing
to use as a landing pad
was the center of the blast zone
because that made a good helipad now.
Getting out of the helicopter,
you would think there would have been
some high fives or some celebrating,
and it was just the opposite of that.
It was just a very solemn
and sad occasion.
You finally understood
the scope of the destruction.
[solemn music playing]
[Pat] I hopped off the helicopter
and I looked around,
and I was curious to see
the landmarks that we had,
because all the landmarks were tents.
And none of them were there.
It-it looked like a bomb went off.
[Sara] It felt like a graveyard.
People had blood on their jackets,
and you didn't want to ask them,
"Where is this coming from?"
And there were those blue tarps there,
like, next to each other,
and the size of the blue tarps
were like the size of a person lying down.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Sara] One of the climbers told me
that these are all the bodies
that are waiting for the helicopter
to take them down the mountain.
[Dave] We finally understood
what this disaster had been.
If you were in the wrong place
at Everest Base Camp
when that blast came through
there was nothing that was gonna help you.
And that we'd been extremely lucky
up there at Camp 1.
[dramatic music grows]
[man 15] At first, when I saw
the messages from Shahar,
they were really disturbing.
It was messages about violence.
And they asked if we can come armed,
which is really unique.
This is not acute mountain sickness.
This is not hypothermia.
This is not what I know.
So you have to think out of the box
and understand
that you have to do something urgently.
[dramatic music playing]
[music fades]
We were getting messages from Israel
that rescue's on its way,
it's a matter of hours.
[helicopter blades whirring]
Then, suddenly,
I see a helicopter in the distance.
And a few hundred meters away,
this helicopter lands.
Out of this helicopter,
some guy jumps out.
And I look at this guy
in the distance and I see,
"Okay, he's wearing shorts,
he's wearing a T-shirt."
And I'm looking at him,
and I'm looking for his gun.
And this guy comes in,
and everybody's around him,
and everyone's expecting
to hear what he has to say.
And then he says a sentence
which I'll never forget. He says
"My name is Yochai."
"I'm from Israel,
and I came to help everyone."
"came to help everyone."
In one second, with one sentence,
the whole tension drops flat.
The second everyone felt like we're all
going to be rescued and believed in it,
then there was nothing to fight over.
[Yochai] I think, to defuse a situation,
the best way is to have
a very, very, very strong tool,
which is hope.
[Athena] He said, "As long as the clouds
hold, as long as they don't come in,
anyone who wants to leave will leave."
It didn't feel real.
It didn't feel real
that someone could just appear.
It just seemed
It seemed too easy. [chuckles]
[Shahar] That was very joyful.
I remember trying to hide my smile,
um but I couldn't.
It was the realization that this is over.
[Yochai] After that speech,
I, uh, spoke with the guy
with the yellow jacket,
and, uh, I promised him
that the first helicopter will be for him.
[Jhangbu] I asked him if he could request
other helicopters to come,
as lots of people were injured there
and needed to be rescued.
[Yuval] Yochai came in
with a satellite phone,
and that satellite phone
was more powerful than any gun
because that satellite phone
gave everybody hope.
[helicopter blades whirring]
[Yochai] Once defused this situation,
everything is more calm
and it's about bringing more helicopters
just to evacuate.
[Athena] Getting on that helicopter,
I mean, I was ecstatic.
The second that the door was closed,
everyone cheered.
And then, a moment later,
it was like being punched in the heart.
And it was a really sober trip from there
to further down the valley,
especially as we passed over
the site of Langtang village.
[Jhangbu] Before the earthquake,
from a helicopter,
the landscape looked so beautiful.
The houses were beautiful.
There were villages.
My heart was crying inside.
I just didn't cry out loud.
I couldn't handle my heart.
[Yuval] I wish I would have been
more respectful
to the locals and their tragedy,
more aware of the tremendous pain
and the consequences
of going down to the village.
[Yaar] I misinterpreted
what had to be done there.
How can you comprehend
the magnitude of it
how much pain was involved in it?
I can't.
[melancholic music playing]
[Laxman] After the crowd lifted me,
we got back because Pemba said
there could be two more people down there.
He said he had heard them shouting.
So we went back to the worksite
and started searching again.
[Arjun] It wasn't possible to dig by hand,
as three to four stories
were piled up against each other.
We had to dig it with a dozer.
After a day of searching
we stopped hearing voices,
even though we shouted for them.
After that,
I felt she was no longer alive.
She was gone.
Then we found Sangeeta,
my brother's son and my youngest daughter.
She was carrying my brother's son
and holding our daughter
as they tried to run.
[in Nepali] I was eating dinner
and my uncle came by.
He didn't say anything
until I finished dinner.
Then he said
that they had found my mother.
He told me that she was no more
and asked if we wanted to visit.
I didn't go. I couldn't.
I didn't know what happened.
Everyone was numb.
My grandmother was crying [sobs]
[crying]
[Arjun] Even after I found
Sangeeta's body,
I couldn't fathom that she was dead.
It felt unreal.
I wish I was there
and would have died with Sangeeta.
Maybe if we had died together,
we would meet each other again.
[sobbing]
[sobbing]
I miss her.
[sobbing]
[soft melancholic music playing]
I can't believe this is happening.
[Jhangbu] Hello.
[all] Hi!