(Updated May 2 at 12:45 p.m.) The family of a St. Albert couple traveling in Nepal when a catastrophic earthquake hit have said Bruce and Kathy Macmillan died.
(Updated May 2 at 12:45 p.m.)
The family of a St. Albert couple traveling in Nepal when a catastrophic earthquake hit have said Bruce and Kathy Macmillan died.
Louise Bentley, Bruce’s sister, confirmed Saturday morning the family has reason to believe the couple perished in an avalanche, although no official word has yet come from the Nepalese police.
“We received, a number of days ago, information that lead us to believe that we knew, for our own purposes, there was no chance they had survived the avalanche,” she said.
In a post to the Facebook group “Find Bruce and Kathy Macmillan,” which now has close to 6,000 followers, the family posted that “Bruce and Kathy were last seen to be hiking in the area that was totally buried in the avalanche.”
“Kathy and Bruce passed away while travelling the world, their passion from the moment they were married,” the post says.
Within hours of the news being posted, hundreds of people offered their condolences and support on the page.
Bentley said the family appreciates all the support for their efforts to locate their loved ones, noting the effort has undoubtedly helped others searching for lost loved ones in Nepal.
“Through the combined efforts of everyone we believe we’ve made a contribution to the safety and finding many other people as well,” she said.
The Macmillans’ two sons, Jay and Fraser, were able to spend several days with their parents in the area prior to the earthquake. They have now returned to Edmonton.
“They are now back in Canada with the family,” Bentley said.
A public tribute to the couple is planned, but no date or location has yet been provided.
Family held on to hope
Earlier this week, family members of the Macmillans were pulling together to keep the faith that they will still be found safe after last Saturday's devastating earthquake in Nepal.
“We're doing OK. There's always hope,” said Kandy Barker, Bruce's sister.
The retired St. Albert couple is still missing as searchers continue to scour the area around the Macmillans' last known location, somewhere between the Lama Hotel and the Kyanjin Gompa camps in the Langtang Valley, approximately 100-km away from the epicentre of the magnitude 7.8 event. Numerous aftershocks have been recorded throughout the small country as well.
The good news is that the couple's sons, Fraser and Jay, are now together in India after Fraser was evacuated out of the country only a few days ago. They're doing really well, Barker continued, “under the circumstances.”
The family is now relying on communications through social media to get further updates from the region. Bruce and Kathy are reportedly the only Canadians that are still unaccounted for, according to media reports.
But they have been directly in contact with the Canadian Medical Assistance Team (CMAT), a volunteer team of emergency disaster relief respondents. That team has been active on the ground already, and yesterday was preparing to send another group of 15 to set up a field hospital with water purification equipment to attend to the injured and assist however possible.
Barker said that her CMAT contact has told her that search teams are working tirelessly to find the missing.
“From what I understand, there's a lot of search organizations in the Langtang valley, but I know that CMAT is there because that's who we've been in contact with.”
Bill Coltart, one of CMAT's technical advisers based out of Comox, B.C. explained that the organization is working closely with the families of the missing and with Nepalese officials, along with the federal government's Disaster Assistance Response Team and Foreign Affairs. First, they must try and pinpoint locations of those people at the centre of the search efforts.
It's a lot of collaborative hard work, he said, but it has already seen success.
“From our standpoint, it's still very much a search and rescue effort for anybody that's trapped or missing,” he said, adding that they have already had success in finding and evacuating Tamara McLeod, a 24-year-old Calgarian who was in the same region as the Macmillans. Langtang Village, he added, was caught up in a rock and mudslide.
“There's very inclement weather up in there so that's hampered the rescue a little bit.”
There's extensive trauma throughout the country, Coltart said, and the injured are still being reached for the first time.
“Our team did conduct a medical assessment to the northwest yesterday. They were a four-hour hike and they were still finding people on the side of the road with very significant injuries that had received no aid yet,” he admitted.
“The alarm bells obviously go off when you have people almost a week after a major earthquake that are still lying around.”
More than 6,300 people have now been confirmed to have perished and more than 14,000 others injured as a result of the earthquake and the ensuing 120 aftershocks.
