One person is dead and another has been injured in a rockslide at Yosemite National Park.
Emergency services are still working to remove the people from the spot on the El Capitan hiking route where it occurred at 1.55pm on Wednesday afternoon.
Around 30 people were feared to have been climbing on the rock face at the time.
Survivor Peter Zabrok, who spoke to DailyMail.com on Wednesday night as he made his way back to base, narrowly avoided death.
He had just climbed above the piece of the rock which tore off when he watched from a ‘birds eye view’ as it fell away, crashing down on others beneath him and his climbing partners.
A deadly rockslide occurred at Yosemite National Park in California on Wednesday, killing one and injuring at least one other. It is shown above as it happened at 1.55pm on Wednesday
‘We were climbing the route where the rockfall occurred and we got a bird’s-eye view of the rockfall.
‘I observed a 100 foot by 100 foot by 100 foot piece of granite peel off and fall 2000 feet to the ground. It was the size of an apartment building’ he said.
Zabrok said the sound of the fall was like ‘a thousand freight trains derailing at once but louder’.
‘There were two people walking at the base and the appeared to get hit and completely buried.
‘We are past it and we are safe. Had we been underneath it we would have died for sure. I give thanks to God and my Saviour Jesus Christ,’ he said.
The fall trigger three smaller slides, he said, which left emergency workers in danger.
‘There have been three subsequent enormous rock falls and this rescuer is in tremendous peril,’ he said, immediately after the first one.
Peter Zabrok was directly above the slide and watched as the rocks fell from underneath him, crushing others below
Zabrok watched as a helicopter scrambled to rescue people beneath him who were ‘completely buried’ in the slide
This was one survivor’s view as people beneath him waited to be rescued by helicopters
Zabrok was making his way down the mountain with his climbing partners Ryan Sheridan and Patrick McCredmond when he spoke to DailyMail.com.
The park announced the slide in a Facebook post shortly after it was reported.
‘The release point appears to be near the “Waterfall Route,” a popular climbing route on the East Buttress of El Capitan,’ the post read.
‘This is the area where Horsetail Fall flows in winter and spring conditions. There is one confirmed fatality and one injured person.
‘Park rangers are working to transport the injured person to receive medical care outside of the park,’ it said.
One of the injured is believed to have been taken away from the accident site