Four Recovered, Six Still Missing: The Search on Broad Peak Continues in Brutal Conditions

Rescue teams working on Pakistan’s Broad Peak have located four bodies among the ten climbers missing since Thursday’s avalanche, officials said Friday. The search for the remaining six continues.

None of the four has been identified. Senior government officials, speaking anonymously because they were not authorised to comment publicly, said efforts to retrieve the bodies were under way despite harsh weather.

What Happened

The Alpine Club of Pakistan said initial information indicated the avalanche struck around midday Thursday on the 8,047-metre mountain in the Karakoram range.

Contact with the expedition was lost immediately and has not been re-established. Karrar Haidri, the club’s vice president, said the team has been out of communication since Thursday.

The club described receiving deeply concerning reports and said it was mobilising every available resource, subject to weather and operational conditions — a qualifier that carries real weight at this altitude.

The Search

Ground teams and helicopters are working the mountain. Army helicopters joined the operation, and rescue mountaineers departed from Skardu Air Base in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Irfan Arshad Khan, the Alpine Club’s president, confirmed the four recoveries by ground teams. Authorities are in contact with the families of those still unaccounted for.

Weather remains the governing constraint. Helicopters at these elevations operate near the edge of their performance envelope, and conditions on the Karakoram can shut down flights for days.

Who Was on the Mountain

According to a statement posted by the Alpine Club of Pakistan, the expedition comprised climbers from five countries.

The Nepali contingent included Nirmal Purja, Pur Bahadur Gurung, Kili Pemba Sherpa, Nima Sherpa, Gyalu Sherpa and Nawang Thindu Sherpa.

Also on the team were Pakistani climber Sohail Sakhi, from Hunza; Chinese climber Wang Zhong; American climber Mallory Geis; and Omani climber Ahmed Abdullah Al Harthy.

Two details from a Pakistan-based travel company that announced the expedition’s departure late last month sit uncomfortably now. It described this as Geis’s first attempt at an 8,000-metre peak in Pakistan, and as what was expected to be Sakhi’s final one.

Nirmal Purja

The most widely recognised name on the list belongs to Nirmal Purja, 43, a Nepal-born mountaineer and former Royal Marine known internationally as Nims Dai.

He came to global attention in 2019 by climbing all fourteen of the world’s peaks above 8,000 metres in just over six months — a feat that shattered the previous record and became the subject of a Netflix documentary. He has remained among the most visible figures in high-altitude mountaineering since.

One uncertain thread emerged Friday. Purja’s business partner, Mingma Gyabu Sherpa, told the Kathmandu Post that data from Purja’s tracking device appeared to indicate movement after the avalanche, and that initially it looked as though he had been swept downhill.

That information has not been confirmed, and tracking data alone cannot establish whether a person is alive. Separately, an official at Seven Summit Treks said hope of finding survivors was gradually fading.

Both statements are worth reporting; neither should be over-read.

About the Mountain

Broad Peak stands 8,047 metres, or roughly 26,400 feet, making it the twelfth-highest mountain in the world. It sits in the Karakoram range near the Chinese border, about five miles from K2.

The Karakoram contains five of the world’s fourteen peaks above 8,000 metres and draws climbers from across the globe each summer. It also has a reputation among mountaineers as considerably less forgiving than the Nepali Himalaya.

The reasons are structural rather than a matter of luck. The range sits further north, weather systems move through faster and with less warning, the approach marches are longer and more remote, and rescue infrastructure is thinner. Helicopter evacuation from high on these mountains is difficult in ideal conditions and impossible in most real ones.

Pakistani officials note that accidents during expeditions in the northern regions are common, driven by avalanches and rapidly shifting weather.

Why Avalanches at This Altitude Are So Lethal

An avalanche on an 8,000-metre peak differs from one on a ski slope in ways that determine outcomes.

Climbers are typically roped together and moving on steep terrain with limited options for escape. Slides can carry people considerable vertical distance. Burial depth is often greater. And the standard tools of avalanche rescue — transceivers, probes, shovels, companions nearby who are physically capable of digging fast — are far less effective when everyone in the area may have been caught in the same event.

Time is the other factor. Survival probability for a buried person falls sharply within the first fifteen to thirty minutes. On a remote 8,000-metre peak, external help simply cannot arrive in that window.

That is not a criticism of anyone’s preparation. It is a description of the environment.

What Happens Next

The immediate task is retrieval of the four recovered bodies and continued searching for the remaining six, both dependent on weather.

Identification will follow. Until then, ten families are waiting on information that no one can yet give them, and the officials involved have been careful not to speculate publicly about who has been found.

The Alpine Club has said it is coordinating with government authorities, rescue agencies and all stakeholders, and monitoring the situation closely.

A Note on Perspective

Every summer season on the 8,000-metre peaks carries fatalities, and the mountaineering community absorbs them with a particular kind of stoicism. This one is unusually large in a single incident, and it involves people at every level of experience — from a climber attempting her first 8,000-metre peak in Pakistan to one of the most accomplished high-altitude mountaineers alive.

That range is itself a reminder of what the mountains actually are. Skill and preparation reduce risk substantially. They do not remove the possibility that a slope releases at midday while a team is crossing it.

The search continues.