The age-old adage in Greek goes like this: “You were lucky amid you unluckiness”. And that was definitely the case with nine Greek mountain climbers last week, who avoided being in a spot where a deadly avalanche struck near Mt. Everest because their Sherpa had taken their money and disappeared when they arrived in Nepal.

“We arrived in Kathmandu last week and there we discovered that our Sherpa had disappeared with the money we had given him,” Sophocles Paitis, one of the climbers told state broadcaster Nerit, as quoted by the AFP.

“We reported the incident to Nepali authorities then decided to return to Greece on Friday, the eve of the earthquake. In the end we were lucky, but we have friends at the (Mt. Everest) camps who are going through very difficult moments,” he added.

A massive 7.8 on the Richter quake struck Nepal on Saturday, killing more than 2,500 people.