ISLAMABAD: The operation to recover climbers caught in a deadly avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak was one of the most difficult ever undertaken due to the extremely dangerous conditions on the mountain, the head of the Alpine Club of Pakistan said on Friday in an interview with state media.
An avalanche struck a 10-member international expedition on the snow-covered slopes of Broad Peak on July 31, killing the climbers, including renowned British-Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja, in what the Alpine Club has described as one of Pakistan’s deadliest mountaineering disasters.
“The rescue operation on Broad Peak was one of the most difficult ever undertaken under extremely dangerous conditions,” Irfan Arshad Khan, president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, said in comments aired by Pakistan TV Global.
Khan paid tribute to Pakistani and Nepali mountaineers who carried out the rescue and recovery operation despite the risks they faced on the mountain.
“The places where they were working, they were extremely dangerous, but they completed their work despite all the difficulties,” he said.
Khan also thanked the Pakistan Army, the Gilgit-Baltistan government and other institutions involved in the operation, as well as the government of Nepal for its support.
Pakistani military helicopters airlifted the bodies of the climbers in a recovery operation that lasted several days.
The international expedition included mountaineers from Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, China, Britain and the United States.
The Alpine Club earlier thanked Pakistani mountaineers Sirbaz Khan, Abid Beg and Sherzad and Nepali climbers Dipen Gurung and Pemba Chhewang Sherpa for their roles in the difficult operation.
Broad Peak, located in the Karakoram range near the Pakistan-China border, is the world’s 12th-highest mountain at 8,051 meters (26,414 feet).
Mountaineering accidents are common in northern Pakistan, home to five of the world’s 14 peaks above 8,000 meters, where climbers face avalanches, falling ice and rock, extreme altitude and rapidly changing weather.
