- Three bodies transported to Skardu: sources.
- Two army rescue helicopters dispatched to area: ACP.
- Three sherpa guides among missing climbers.
Search and rescue teams have recovered the bodies of four more mountaineers after an avalanche struck a group attempting to summit Broad Peak in the Karakoram range.
Efforts are continuing to locate the two remaining mountaineers from a team of 10 who were caught in the incident, sources at the Broad Peak base camp said.
They said that four bodies were recovered earlier in the day, with three of them transported to Skardu.
The expedition included five Nepali climbers led by Dai, Pakistani climber Sohail Sakhi, Omani mountaineer Nadhira, American climber Mallory Geis, Chinese climber Mr Wang and another foreign climber.
The climbers are believed to have been swept away by an avalanche on the 8,051-metre (26,414-foot) peak, the world’s 12th-highest mountain, around midday on Thursday.
Search and rescue operations were continuing on Friday, Sajid Hussain, deputy director of the tourism department in Gilgit-Baltistan, told Reuters.
The search was focusing on a “remote and difficult area”, said Hussain.
Two Pakistan Army Aviation rescue helicopters have been dispatched, said the ACP.
“We remain hopeful for the safe recovery of the missing climbers,” said the club. “The entire team has reportedly been out of communication since the avalanche.”
Trekking company Seven Summit Treks (SST) had three sherpa guides among the missing climbers, Chhang Dawa Sherpa, a board director, told Reuters.
Chhang said team members’ last tracked location at the time of the suspected avalanche was at 6,600 metres (21,653 ft) and “fell down straight from there”.
Broad Peak, the world’s 12th-highest mountain at 8,047 metres, is located in the Karakoram range of northern Pakistan and is among the country’s most challenging peaks for high-altitude expeditions.
Purja first climbed Annapurna, the 10th-highest mountain in the world, on April 23, 2019, and then began taking on other “8,000ers.”
He became more widely known internationally after a Netflix documentary chronicling his journey was released two years later.
Of the world’s 14 highest peaks, eight are in Nepal, five in Pakistan and one in Tibet.
Climbing experts say barely over three dozen mountaineers have climbed all 14 peaks to date.
— With additional input from Reuters
