August 01, 2008	Friday	Rajab 28, 1429

HUNZA, July 31: A 28-year-old mountaineer, Ben Cheek, from West Didsbury, Manchester, is missing on 20,000-foot Whitethorn peak in the Shimshal valley of Hunza since July 11 and is now feared dead, a tour operator said.

Mr Cheek was scheduled to return four days after he started his climb. He had previously been badly injured during an attempt to scale the same peak in 2006. The peak is highly dangerous and had been scaled only twice before.

Ben Cheek was in Shimshal as part of a four-member failed 2008 expedition to summit the more than 7,620 metres high Destughail Sar.

At present, colleagues of Ben Cheek from the Destughail Expedition, Bruce Normand and Peter Thompson, are coordinating a search and rescue mission from Shimshal village. Andrew Thorne, an uncle of the missing mountaineer, has also arrived in Shimshal from Britain to join the search efforts.

After improvement in weather conditions, the helicopters of Askari Aviation carried out rescue operations on Thursday, however, there was no clue to the missing person.

According to local people, there is a little hope that Mr Cheek is still alive.

Recently, two Italian climbers were also stranded on the 8,170-metre high Nanga Parbat, however, they were rescued on July 24 by Pakistan Army helicopters.