A desperate high-altitude search in northern Pakistan has brought grim news: rescuers have recovered four bodies near the avalanche zone where ten members of a climbing expedition led by celebrated British-Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja had gone missing.
Police in the rugged Gilgit-Baltistan region said rescue teams managed to reach the area struck by the avalanche yesterday, after the slide severed contact with the international group operating in the mountains.
“Preliminary reports indicate that four (04) bodies have so far been recovered,” Gilgit-Baltistan region’s police spokesperson said in a statement on Facebook, adding that the condition of the remaining climbers was still being verified.
According to the Alpine Club of Pakistan, the expedition included ten climbers: five Nepalese nationals, one Pakistani, one Omani, one American and one climber from China.
“The Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP) has received deeply concerning reports of an avalanche that struck a team of climbers on Broad Peak (8,047m) in the Karakoram mountain range,” the club said late yesterday.
“The entire team has reportedly been out of communication since the avalanche,” it said.
Mr Purja, 43, is one of modern mountaineering’s best-known figures. A former member of Britain’s Brigade of Gurkhas who later served with the Royal Marines’ Special Boat Squadron, he has set a series of climbing records since turning to mountaineering and guiding full time.
Between April and October 2019, he climbed all 14 of the world’s “eight-thousanders” — mountains higher than 8,000 metres, or 26,000 feet — in six months and six days, establishing what was then a record.
Two years later, in 2021, Mr Purja was part of a ten-member Nepali team that achieved the first winter ascent of K2.
Broad Peak is the world’s 12th highest mountain
‘Ask for nothing’
China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said officials were “urgently working to verify and understand the situation” and that Beijing stood ready to assist Pakistan.
The Alpine Club said rescuers carrying geolocation equipment had been deployed as the search for the missing climbers continued.
“Through Global Positioning System (GPS), we have already traced the locations of four climbers,” Ayaz Shigri, general secretary of the Alpine Club, told AFP in the mountainous northern city of Skardu.
“For now, we can’t say anything about what exactly has happened,” he said.
Military helicopters were also supporting crews on the ground, the club said, adding critical reach to an operation unfolding in thin air and severe terrain.
Earlier this week, Mr Purja wrote on X that he was nearing a new milestone: becoming the first person to climb all 14 “super peaks” twice without supplemental oxygen.
“Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down,” he wrote.
“I take zero mountains for granted. Not one. The moment my foot leaves basecamp, it’s 100%. Always has been. Always will be.
“My purpose has never been about me. It’s about what I represent. It’s about showing YOU that your own mountains – whatever they are – are climbable.”
Broad Peak, the world’s 12th highest mountain, rises in the Karakoram range of northern Pakistan and is considered among the most demanding and technical of the peaks above 8,000 metres.
An Austrian team made the first successful ascent of the mountain in 1957.
