On the morning of 5 June 2015, at 7:15 a.m. the mountain roared and tons of rocks came hurtling down on the climbers making their way up to the summit of Mt. Kinabalu, the highest mountain in S.E. Asia.
At that precise moment, I had just returned from a round of morning golf and was walking back to my apartment from the car park. I heard a loud rolling kind of sound and thought that the glass roof of the condominium was falling down. Residents on the other side of the block had seen it swaying. Later I realized that it was the metal roofing of the car parks that had made the sound when tremors shook the ground.
Another friend who was in her house saw the floor moving like a wave and her grandmother who was seated on the sofa, swaying from side to side. She said she felt dizzy and rushed outside to find that her neighbours had all come out and were waiting on the roadside, for the tremors to subside.
Nearer the epicenter, the towns of Ranau and Kundasang were badly affected. Their homes had cracks in their walls. Public buildings like the hospital, schools, places of worship and the police station were affected. Cracks appeared in their walls and in the ground.
On the mountain, the iconic Donkey Ears Peak had one of its ears broken off. The sides of the mountain were sheared off and some rest huts higher up along the route were completely destroyed. Other huts were badly damaged.
Donkey Ears Peak
Worst off were the climbers, guides and porters who were approaching the summit or still on the trail going up. Most of the casualties were young elementary school children aged twelve who were on a school trip. They were harnessed to ropes making their way up the Via Ferratta, a steep climb on the bare rock face, leading to the summit, when the rocks and boulders rained down on them, snapping the ropes and crushing them.
Climbing up the Via Ferratta
Young climbers crushed beneath the rocks
Those already on the peak were unscathed but their descent was made impossible because the rocks and boulders had destroyed the trail which they had ascended hours before the quake struck. With the tremors and rock falls that continued incessantly, they waited and prayed for rescue.
They were told that helicopters would come for them. This buoyed their spirits but as the day lengthened, it became obvious that no help was forthcoming although a ‘copter appeared and dropped off supplies of food and blankets which unfortunately were way off mark and disappeared into the ravines.
Waiting in vain
Faced with the prospect of a freezing night, the cold and hungry climbers were at a complete loss. However their sturdy mountain guides made the tough decision to lead them down the mountain, even as darkness was descending. It was either stay and freeze to death or risk their lives descending the mountain on trails that their guides would hack out for them.
Meanwhile a group of courageous mountain guides from the base of the mountain, decided to make the risky climb fraught with danger because of falling rocks, to help their comrades, hacking their way through rocks, debris and fallen trees to reach the climbers who were being led down in the dark. Those injured were carried by mountain guides while others who were not as badly hurt, made their way slowly down, sometimes stepping on the shoulders on the guides to cross the difficult unfamiliar terrain. Many of the children were carried on the backs of the guides and makeshift stretchers.
It was a perilous journey made in the dark and it was 3 a.m. when they finally reached the base camp where the guides handed them over to the emergency crew for medical attention.
The horror and trauma of this terrible experience will stay with both climbers and guides for a long time to come, especially for the young children who had flown all the way from Singapore for this challenging climb. They lost a few of their classmates and teachers, seeing them crushed by the falling rocks. Those who survived were injured, some critically.
Four mountain guides lost their lives while protecting those in their charge and two teachers from Singapore died together with their pupils. Apart from Malaysian casualties, others were from other countries.
Official figures confirmed that there were more than 50 after shocks following the earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 on the Richter scale. Meanwhile rain in the area has led to widespread landslides on the mountain sides and people have reported further tremors.
Fund raising has kicked off to help the victims of the earthquake and the families of the deceased mountain guides. The federal government has also announced an allocation to repair the damaged facilities on the mountain.
It could have been worse but praise the Lord, the mountain guides managed to save many lives through their selflessness and great courage. These simple folks went beyond the call of duty and have won the hearts of all Malaysians in Sabah.
