Two avalanches hit a group of four climbers on 7,010m Khan Tengri in the Tien Shan Mountains on July 29, according to the Kazinform News Agency and other Kazakh sources.
Three Kazakh climbers from Almaty survived, but Aleksey Smirnov from Moscow died.
The four climbers escaped the first avalanche, but later that day, a second, deadlier one came down from nearby Chapaev Peak.
The three Kazakh climbers, Boris Dedeshko, Pavel Blazhnov and Marianna Petrova, saved themselves by diving behind some rocks that gave them access to air. But Smirnov could not reach the rocks in time and perished.
After the slide passed, the survivors called for help on the radio. Four nearby guides rescued them within 40 minutes.
According to a Kazakh source, aikyn.kz, the two avalanches occurred on July 29 and struck three hours apart.
Khan Tengri. Photo: Wikipedia
Mostly buried in wet snow
According to Blazhnov, the second avalanche caught the group at 5,050m at 8:15 am.
“We were saved by a rock formation,” said Blazhnov. “Our feet and chest were covered with wet snow. Although our heads and arms were free, we couldn’t move. We tried to get out, but no way. The wet snow turned to ice and our fingers were getting cold.”
Gradually, the climbers began to freeze, but the rescuers managed to reach them in time.
They planned to retrieve Smirnov’s body a couple of days later. If all went well, they will have done so by now.
One of the survivors, Boris Dedeshko, is a climbing partner of Denis Urubko. Together, they made the first alpine-style ascent of the southeast face of Cho Oyu in 2009.
Avalanches happen frequently on Khan Tengri. Twenty years ago, more than a dozen of climbers died when an avalanche struck them on the Pogrebetskiy route, the most popular route of the mountain.
