KATMANDU, Nepal – Mountaineers who survived a predawn avalanche high on the world’s eighth-tallest peak say they waited an hour for the sun to rise and then saw pieces of tents and bodies of victims strewn around them on the snow.

Italian climber Silvio Mondinelli said he and a fellow mountaineer were asleep when they heard a violent sound and felt their tent start to slide.

“It was only a few seconds and we did not know what happened, but we had slid more than 650 feet,” Mondinelli told The Associated Press on Monday. “All we wanted was for it to stop.”