A group of 10 international climbers led by a Nepali mountaineer, Nirmal Purja, is feared missing after an avalanche struck the team late Thursday at the Broad Peak, one of the highest mountains in northern Pakistan.
The vice president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, Karrar Haidiri, said that the climbers have been out of communication since then.
The expedition included five Nepalese climbers, Nepal-born British mountaineer Nirmal Purja, Pakistani mountaineer Sohail Sakhi of Hunzqa, Omani climber Nathira, American climber Mallory Geis and a Chinese climber Wang. The group also included an unidentified foreign climber, according to Haidiri.
The Pakistan Alpine Club said that the avalanche struck the 8,047-meter-high Broad Peak in the Karakoram Range around noon Thursday.
The accident occurred when the team was on an expedition to the peak.
The Alpine club has found that the tracking device Nirmal Purja carried showed movement, raising hopes for the rescue teams.
The device’s location has changed after the avalanche, according to Purja’s business partner and Nepal MP Mingma Gyaby Sherpa.
“Every possible effort is being made to ensure that helicopter support and all available rescue resources are mobilised at the earliest opportunity, subject to weather and operational conditions,” the club said.
"We are coordinating with the authorities and trying to arrange a helicopter rescue on Friday morning Pakistani time, depending on weather conditions," Haidri told the BBC.
Purja, 43, also known as Nims Dai, has broken multiple climbing records since he became a full-time mountaineer and tour guide in 2018 after leaving the British Military.
He climbed all 14 “eight-thousanders”, peaks above 8,000 metres, or 26,000 feet, in six months and six days between April and October 2019, breaking a record that year.
Purja was also part of a team of nine other Nepalese climbers who completed the first winter ascent of K2 in 2021.
Purja had also previously joined the British Army in 2003 and became a Royal Marine in 2009.
