SOUTHWEST HARBOR

A local documentary filmmaker who has been filming a documentary about Sherpas working on Mount Everest had left the mountain only hours before a deadly earthquake hit Nepal, killing more than 2,400 people.

Alison Hudson has been shooting film and conducting interviews at Base Camp on Everest and had flown out of Lukla, an alpine town in the mountain’s shadow, only hours before the temblor struck.

She flew to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, where she weathered the quake and multiple aftershocks.

“Landed in Kathmandu this morning and four hours later stood in a doorway as the whole world shook,” Hudson wrote on her Facebook page. “Four hours of aftershocks. Am safe and hoping others are as well. Saddened at the loss of life and of culture.”

She said aftershocks were still occurring. A building where she was staying in Kathmandu was evacuated but Hudson indicated that she managed to retrieve all her film footage, her laptop computer and her camera.

Her parents, Hilary and Steve Hudson, have been trying to book their daughter a ticket out of the country, Hilary Hudson said Saturday morning.

“Initially we were trying to change her original ticket,” Hilary Hudson said. “There aren’t a ton of options and they’re filling up really quickly. … We’re hoping that we can get her to Dubai.”

By Saturday afternoon, their daughter had a flight out.

“We aren’t able to pay for her ticket from here,” said Hilary Hudson around 4 p.m. Saturday. “I don’t understand all of the politics behind it, but one of her friends, who teaches in Abu Dhabi, has gotten her a flight to Abu Dhabi on Monday morning.

Where she goes from there will be up to Alison Hudson, her mother said.

Alison Hudson, who went over to Nepal in January, was originally scheduled to return to Maine May 25, her mother said.

Hilary Hudson said they did not know about the earthquake until they heard from their daughter Saturday through “a couple of threeminute phone calls.

“[Alison] arrived in Kathmandu four hours before the earthquake,” Hilary Hudson said. “We got a call early, early this morning.”

Hilary Hudson is not sure her daughter will be able to continue to call.

“I don’t know what we’ve got for communication right now. It may just be email and Facebook,” she said. “We have so little info on what is going on with her.”

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