This is the terrifying moment a group of tourists survived after they were caught in the path of a powerful ice avalanche in Kyrgyzstan.
The group, made up of nine Britons and one American, were on a guided tour in the Tian Shan mountains in Central Asia when huge chunks of ice and snow came hurtling down the mountain towards them.
The footage was filmed and uploaded to Instagram by Harry Shimmin, from the UK, who said he was taking pictures when he heard the sound of “ice cracking”.
The video shows him standing his ground as the avalanche comes hurtling down the mountain towards him and then at the last minute taking cover behind a rock.
As the avalanche passed overhead Harry said he feared for his life but miraculously survived “without a scratch”.
He wrote on social media: “When the snow started coming over and it got dark / harder to [breathe], I was bricking it and thought I might die.”
"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."
While one American woman suffered from a deep cut in her knee to the bone, the others were also lucky to escape with just cuts and bruises.
He said they were all “laughing and crying” with relief to have survived and only later realised that if they had been any further up the mountain, it could have been a very different story.
“The whole group was laughing and crying, happy to be alive (including the girl who cut her knee). It was only later we realised just how lucky we’d been,” Harry wrote.
“If we had walked 5 minutes further on our trek, we would all be dead. If you look carefully in the video, you can see the faint grey trail winding through the grass. That was the path.
"We traversed it afterwards, walking among massive ice boulders and rocks that had been thrown much further than we could have run, even if we acted immediately.
“To make it worse, the path runs alongside a low ridge, hiding the mountain from view, so we would have only heard the roar before lights out.”
READ NEXT:
Date confirmed for increased Back to School allowance to be paid out to families
Met Eireann forecasts stunning week as temperatures hit 26C but two areas miss out
Aslan rocker Christy Dignam says people think he is faking having cancer
Tributes paid to bonfire builder killed in fall in Northern Ireland
Get breaking news to your inbox by signing up to our newsletter .
