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David Morton

The center of Thame is littered with debris.

Ang Phutti Sherpa and her grandson Lhakpa Nuru Sherpa suffered head wounds, cuts, and bruises after their house collapsed on top of them.

After her home was destroyed, Kami Tshering Sherpa set up a makeshift kitchen. “The people aren’t waiting for aid or government help, they are banding together and starting to put the pieces back together,” says Morton.

Elders perform a cremation ceremony for Pasang Diki Sherpa, a woman who died in her home in Yelajung, close to Thame.

Thame and surrounding villages still have a clean, plentiful water supply thanks to local rivers. Here, Nawang Tundup Sherpa retrieves a “sa,” or traditional water container, from his damaged home.

A family retrieves valuables from their wrecked Gomba room, or prayer room. Such cleanup efforts began right after the quake, Morton says.

Pem Phurti Sherpa rests in front of her damaged home as her granddaughter peers through their temporary shelter. Morton says the family may have to tear its house down and rebuild from scratch.

Mingma Phuti Sherpa and her son Lhakpa Tenzing take in the damage of their home in Thame just hours after the earthquake. Villagers expect to stay where they are and “have nowhere to evacuate to,” Morton says.

Photographer and mountain guide David Morton was visiting the rural Sherpa village of Thame in eastern Nepal when the earthquake struck on Saturday. Over the next few days, Morton documented destruction in Thame and other villages in the Khumbu Valley, even as the aftershocks kept coming. Above, villagers try to salvage what they can from a home that was badly damaged by the earthquake.