Mt. Kinabalu Earthquake

No reports of fatalities so far. Local word here in Singapore says there were a few serious injuries but details have been slow to emerge.
I have a few acquaintances up there climbing and guiding so I'll update it when I hear anything.

Straits Times Report

A massive amount of rock has fallen including one of the iconic Donkeys Ears spires which had a couple great routes on it. That thing must have been spectacular when it fell!

• **edit*** See my later posts...there were unfortunately many fatalities. My condolences to all effected by this event.

This video shows dust and debris in the area where the standard ascent route zig zags up the slabs above Laban Rata guest house where many climbers spend at least one night on the peak.

m.youtube.com/watch?list=PL…¶ms=OAFIAVgC&v=mWIR7N6DhEA&mode=NORMAL

You' know you are old when you outlive the mountains. This is from 1993. The thing could have fallen into Lowes Gulley, which would be a mega-trundle.

Yeah Sam, that does make me feel old... now. Thanks for that.

In your photo you can see the notch on the left side of the spire about 3/4 up. That's the top of the fault where the spire broke. The fault ran through and diagonally down away from the face in the photo. Looks like it ended up losing 2/3 of its height (at least).

In this photo you can see the seam that failed. The top "egg" shaped bit of the right spire slid right off and you're probably right about it heading off towards Lows Gully. Maybe it's a big-ass chockstone wedged in there now?!? Probably just dust and rubble though.

It's bad. Lots of folks were hurt or killed by a substantial amount of rockfall that swept both the standard ascent/descent route and the via feratta route. Send any good thoughts you can spare.

Kinabalu is a fairly easy peak to climb. Most of the people involved were just hikers, tourists, school kids on holiday break. But the last couple kilometers of the route are up very exposed smooth granite slabs with fixed lines (sort of like a lower angle version of the Half Dome cables). This is the section that was raked by rockfall.

Wow, that's crazy and sad to hear. I did a bunch of routes on Mt. Kinabalu in 2006, it's a really cool mountain. Best wishes to the people who are impacted by this.