slope of death

Gilgit (Pakistan), Aug. 3 (Reuters): At least nine climbers have died on K2, the world’s second highest peak, in Pakistan in one of the blackest days in the sport of mountaineering and the toll could rise, expedition organisers said today.

Those confirmed dead included three South Koreans, two Nepalese, along with Serbian, Norwegian, Dutch and French climbers.

Unconfirmed reports said one Pakistani had died and several foreign and local climbers were unaccounted for.

Catastrophe struck on Friday, when a chunk of ice broke from a serac, a pillar or cuboid of ice, and tore away fixed lines from a perilous steep gully known as the Bottleneck, above 8,200 metres.

Several expeditions were on the mountain, including a Korean team that was making its descent after summiting the 8,611-metre peak, in northern Pakistan near the border with China.

The Korean team lost five members, including the two Nepalese in the ice fall.

“They were returning from the summit when an avalanche at the Bottleneck hit them,” Ghulam Mohammad, owner of Blue Sky Travels and Tours, told Reuters. “Our liason officer at the base camp confirmed the death of five.”

Three more fatalities were confirmed by Brigadier Mohammad Akram, vice-president of Pakistan’s Adventure Foundation.

“We don’t have the names of the dead climbers but it has been confirmed that one Dutch, one Norwegian and one French are in the tally of the dead,” Akram said.

A Serbian climber, identified as Dren Mandic on various mountaineering websites, fell to his death earlier on Friday during the ascent and a Pakistani sherpa was also believed to have died.

The previous deadliest day in the history of K2, was on August 13, 1995, when six people fell or disappeared during a storm.

The head of Italian mountaineering group Ev-K2-CNR said the toll could go higher. “According to the rumours from the various expeditions at the base camp, there should be nine people dead and four still missing,” the group’s head, Agostino Da Polenza, who is in Italy, told Sky Italia television.

Around a dozen climbers were stranded at Bottleneck, at an altitude known as the “Death Zone” as bodies begin degenerating because of lack of oxygen.

More than 70 climbers have lost their lives on K2, a good number of them at the Bottleneck. Called “the mountain of mountains” by the renowned Italian climber Reinhold Messner, K2 is not the deadliest in terms of number of fatalities but statistics show chances of dying making a descent after summiting K2 are greater than for other peaks.