High-altitude worker Iftikhar Hussain of Pakistan lost his life on K2 yesterday in an avalanche that caught a four-member group while they descended from Camp 1 to Base Camp.
The slide took place at around 12:30, local time, on Friday. The avalanche hit Hussain, Dawa Finjo Sherpa and Dawa Geljen Sherpa from Nepal, and high-altitude porter Niaz Ali from Skardu, Dawn reported. They are all members of the Mountain Professionals team.
It is not clear whether the accident involved rockfall, a snow avalanche, or a combination of both.
No other teams affected
A ground rescue team was immediately dispatched from Base Camp to help the climbers. Sadly, there was nothing the rescue team could do to save Hussain’s life. The other three team members were able to descend under their own power.
Ryan Waters, CEO of Mountain Professionals, confirmed the news to ExplorersWeb:
Hussain, one of the porters supporting our team, who was contracted through a local partner, tragically lost his life. We are deeply saddened by this loss, and our thoughts are with his family and the local climbing community in Pakistan.
Our international guide and clients were at Base Camp at the time of the incident and are all safe. Some of our support team members were higher on the route. Everyone from our team, including climbing Sherpas, has returned to Base Camp and is accounted for.
As this situation is still developing, we are continuing to gather accurate information from our team. We understand there is wide interest and will be able to share more once we have confirmed details and have connected with all the appropriate parties.
A helicopter will airlift Hussain’s remains from Base Camp to his home in Sadpara village.
Climbers going up
Bad weather has kept K2 teams stalled for most of this week, but a slight improvement on Friday and optimistic forecasts encouraged many climbers to go up to Camp 2.
Staff members need to fix ropes and set Camp 3, and climbers without supplemental oxygen, such as Israfil Ashurli of Azerbajan (who, according to his tracker, is at camp 2), Santiago Quintero of Ecuador, Serge Hardy of France, and Csaba Varga of Hungary, need to acclimatize as high as possible if they want a summit chance.
Lakpa Sherpa of 8K Expeditions told ExplorersWeb that his team is moving toward Camp 3.
