Hopefully, we’re going to have a drama-free season this time.” Those were the words of Longford man and farmer’s son Paul Devaney on 28 March this year, when I met him just before he left Ireland for Nepal.

Paul’s original efforts to climb Mount Everest were sadly thwarted last year by an avalanche that killed 16 Sherpas and ensued unrest which saw the mountain being closed down.

I asked Paul back in March if he was scared for his life, given he was about to undertake such a dangerous endeavour ... again.

“Statistically, up to 10 people will die every season,” he replied. “So when you look around you at base camp, 10 people are not going to go home. And your job is to make sure you’re not one of them.”

Little could Paul have known that 19 people would actually die at base camp this year – and it was nothing to do with the climb. He’s lucky he’s not one of them.

“We were at base camp. We had gone to camp one, gone over the ice falls and come back. We were on a rest day and we were going to go back to camp one that night (ascension of Everest is conducted in a two-steps-forward one-step-back kind of fashion to help with acclimatisation). We were in the dining tent having a coffee, when the earthquake struck. You’re on a glacier all the time at base camp so the impact was more exaggerated because of that.”

The earthquake sparked an avalanche and it wasn’t long before they could see that avalanche, just 50 metres away, heading straight for them.

“It was going to take us. It dusted our camp and completely destroyed the middle of base camp. A big lump had come down and crashed on a plateau at the same level as base camp. It sent a shockwave, it threw rocks. It threw everything it could see. It travelled at 400 miles an hour. It was like a bomb going off in the middle of base camp.

“The two ends of base camp were like bookends – perfect. But 19 people in the middle of base camp got killed. We ended up walking through the debris and the medical tent was still standing,” says Paul.

Different stations were set up for the seriously wounded and the walking wounded, and they carried people to those for hours and hours and hours.

“Some people were not going to make it through the night. The injured had to make it through the day and night before evacuation.”

They also had to be prepared for the aftershock.

“We were told to put on our helmets and keep them on, and if you hear and see something, find a rock and hide behind it. It was a very long night.”

There were more climbers up at camp one.

“Camp one is an avalanche zone anyway. They felt the ground under them fall. They could hear avalanches, but they couldn’t see because of poor visibility. They had an impending sense of doom. They were radioing down to base camp, but no one was answering. It was unnerving because base camp – the safest place on Everest – became unsafe.

Paul eventually got down from the mountain and, like many other climbers, stayed on to help the humanitarian effort. When Irish Country Living spoke to him last week he was doing relief work on the outskirts of Kathmandu. He helped travel company Ripcord get an air shipment up to Gorhka, because no emergency supplies had got there.

Then he got involved with Nepal Ireland, getting stuck into useful projects, such as the setting up of an outdoor medical assessment centre in a very rural village. They medicated the whole village, wrote prescriptions where needed.

Paul was writing an email at his hotel in Thamel, when the second earthquake struck.

“The whole hotel started moving violently. I sprinted for the street. You could still feel the earth moving under you. It lasted less than a minute, but the city was gone from bustling to deserted in two hours. People fled. The shutters came down. I was in the middle of Kathmandu with nowhere to eat, no shops open to buy food or water and no power.”

No one knew if Paul was dead or alive for five hours. He bumped into a climber he knew on the street and was able to send a Facebook message using her phone.

“There’s a state of paranoia in Nepal at the moment,” says Paul. “A state of fear, but a sort of controlled fear. Everyone’s in a state of readiness.

“You have to plan ahead – before I get into the shower I have to think what I’ll do if something happens. I sleep with my clothes on, shoes on and helmet on. I have my phone and keys arranged so I can grab and go.

“A lot of people are sleeping outdoors, in parks. It’s a long time before they’ll sleep indoors, because you could be trapped under storeys of rubble in a building.

“Nepal has had a 7.8 earthquake and a 7.4 earthquake within two weeks. We’re not entirely sure that’s the end of it.”

Paul has returned to Ireland since we spoke to him, but will his desire to climb Everest bring him back to Nepal?

“Right now I don’t see it in the immediate future. I’ve tried it twice. I’ve ended up in the two worst disasters in the history of Everest. I don’t want to be in a third one. It’s too much like a movie set and too little like a climbing expedition.”

He’s also put his family through enough worry to last them several lifetimes.

“I think I owe them a break.”

Donations can be made to Nepal Ireland, Goal Ireland and Ian Taylor Trekking to help the humanitarian effort in Nepal.

www.nepalireland.org