Watch: Avalanche hurtles towards trekkers in Kyrgyzstan; terrifying moment caught on camera

A group of American and British tourists narrowly survived getting buried under an avalanche in Kyrgyzstan's Tian Shen mountains. Terrifying footage of the incident has grabbed attention on social media.

The incident happened after a glacier collapsed on top of the mountain where the tourists were hiking. The group, which had one British and nine American hikers, narrowly survived the avalanche.

The footage of the avalanche racing towards the group was captured by Harry Shimmin, a tourist who had broken away from the group to take photographs. According to a post shared by Shimmin, he had walked away from the group after they reached the highest point of the trek. While he was taking photographs, he heard the sound of deep ice cracking behind him. Watch:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CfyT6xcA27D/?

He then saw the avalanche of ice moving towards him. Shimmin knew that there was there was a shelter nearby, but he took a risk and ran away from the spot. While he admitted that it might have been safer to move to the shelter, Shimmin said that he ‘felt in control’ of the situation. “I felt in control, but regardless, when the snow started coming over and it got dark / harder to breath, I was bricking it and thought I might die,” he wrote.

“Behind the rock it was like being inside a blizzard. Once it was over the adrenaline rush hit me hard. I was only covered in a small layer of snow, without a scratch. I felt giddy. I knew the rest of the group was further away from the avalanche so should be okay,” he added.  As per the post, a woman suffered a cut knee, while one person fell off a horse.
Shimmin further mentioned that if his group had walked ahead for five more minutes, they would have died.  He added that the group later walked through the site, and realised that massive rocks and ice boulders had been thrown much further by the force of the avalanche than they could have ever run.
The clip, which was shared two days ago, has received over 4.3 lakh views on Instagram. Many users found the video terrifying, while others were glad that no one lost their lives.

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