Two helicopters are on their way to Pakistan’s 8,051m Broad Peak, where 10 people, including famous climber Nirmal Purja, are missing after an avalanche yesterday. Meanwhile, a ground search party has located four bodies at the bottom of the slide.
The avalanche struck just before 9:30 am local time yesterday, catching 10 summit-bound climbers at 6,600m. Their InReach trackers showed a rapid fall of hundreds of meters. Some came to rest almost at Base Camp. For some reason, the call for an aerial rescue was only made hours later.
The latest position of the currently missing climbers on Broad Peak, compiled by Samson Sharaf of Pakistan. The red circle marks the likely site where the avalanche hit.
Latest locations of the climbers registered on their trackers, on a 3D image of Broad Peak, compiled by Samson Sharaf. Nirmal Purja’s track shows he fell 800m, while Nadhira Al Harthy fell almost to the base of the mountain.
“Karakorum Expeditions team member Waqar Ali, together with Sona Sherpa and two Pakistani climbers, has recovered four bodies from the base of the avalanche, opposite Broad Peak Base Camp, where the victims were carried down,” the Hunza-based outfitter Karakorum Expeditions reported this morning.
Two bodies identified
So far, the Alpine Club of Pakistan has confirmed the identities of two of the deceased climbers. They are Nadhira Al Harthy of Oman and Pur Bahadur Gurung, known as Yukta, of Nepal.
Nadhira Al Harthy of Oman. Photo: Instagram
Al Harthy had become the first Omani woman to summit Everest in 2019 and was involved in climbing the 14 8,000’ers. She had also summited K2 and Manaslu, among other peaks. She was on Broad Peak with Seven Summit Treks.
Pur Bahadur Gurung was one of the guides working for Nirmal Purja’s EliteExped and probably accompanied Purja on his latest record pursuit. It seems that there were no clients with EliteExped on this occasion.
Potential survivors
Karakorum Expeditions wrote that two of its members were also caught in the slide and are still out of contact. “The home team monitoring one of our climbers’ InReach devices has reported a slight movement signal, giving us hope,” the company noted.
Meanwhile, two helicopters left for Broad Peak at around 8 am Pakistan time. They are carrying well-known local climbers Sirbaz Khan and Sherzad Karim, who will help conduct an aerial search for the climbers still missing.
Nims Purja
The list of missing climbers includes some of the best-known local guides in Nepal and Pakistan, as well as their clients. Notably, Nirmal Purja, aka Nims Dai, has been attempting to become the first person to climb the 14 8,000’ers three times, and also to climb all 14 twice without bottled oxygen.
Also on the mountain was Sohail Sakhi of Pakistan, an advocate of no-O2 climbing and a mentor for many Pakistani climbers. Sakhi had previously summited all the 8,000’ers in his country. On this occasion, he was using bottled oxygen while guiding American Mallory Geis. Geis was on her first 8,000m experience after climbing some 6,000’ers in Nepal, one of them guided by Sakhi.
Also missing are Wang Zhong of China, and Nepalese Nima Sherpa, Nawang Thindu Sherpa, Gyalu Sherpa, and Kili “Kilu” Pemba Sherpa, one of the most experienced climbers with the Imagine Nepal team. He was also one of the famous Nepalese team, together with Nirmal Purja, that completed the first winter ascent of K2 in 2021.
We should note that David Klein of Hungary and Ian Overton of the U.S., who had also planned to climb Broad Peak, are safely back in Skardu. They didn’t like the weather forecast and left on July 25.
“There had been a massive wind storm the night of July 18 with a lot of blowing snow,” Overtold told ExplorersWeb. “The benches from Camp 3 to Camp 2 had considerable snow/wind crust and were fairly ‘punchy.’ Everything below Camp 2 was unconsolidated and melting out quickly. Lots of loose rock and failing ice.”
Overton added: “After David [Klein]’s push and return to Base Camp, we monitored the weather. Winds were too high, and humidity was elevated throughout the region, indicating likely fresh snow through the 29th.”
