Annapurna is one of the deadliest mountains in the Himalayas. It’s the tenth-highest peak in the world, topping out at 8,091 meters (26,545 ft) above sea level. But aside from its size, the mountain has long been known most for how deadly it is. For years, Annapurna I held the highest fatality-to-summit rate of all principal eight-thousander summits, with more than one in every three people dying during attempts to summit. That summit-to-fatality rate has dropped significantly in the 21st century however, dipping below 20 percent in the 10 years between 2012 and 2022. All this for a peak that was attempted for the first time in just the 1950s and has seen more than 70 deaths in the decades since.
A recent viral video from the Himalayan mountain shows tourists watching a tremendous avalanche from afar. The North Annapurna base camp from which they’re watching seems to be well out of reach from the slide itself — reportedly about 4,100 meters above them. But as the video continues, that cloud of snow gets bigger and bigger and closer and closer. There’s no chaotic stampede, but the campers and their guides do soon realize they might not be at as safe a distance as they thought.
“It was like watching a storm fall from the sky,” one witness said, according to the UK’s Express.
“We could feel the pressure hit us before we even saw the snow,” another bystander said.
According to multiple reports, the entire camp eventually had zero visibility, although the video cuts off before that point. No one was injured in the incident.
