GILGIT: The Army Aviation and mountaineers launched a joint operation on Thursday to trace two missing climbers at Nanga Parbat.

The rescue team detected tent of the missing climbers at Camp-3 and found some traces of avalanche in the area. It is feared that the two mountaineers have been hit by the avalanche.

The two mountaineers, Daniel Nardi from Italy and Tom Ballard from UK, who were attempting to summit Nanga Parbat through a new route, went missing from Camp-4 at 6,300 metres altitude on February 24.

According to sources, on Thursday morning Army Aviation took Pakistani mountaineer Ali Sadpara and his colleagues Imtiaz Hussain and Dilawar Hussain to Nanga Parbat from Skardu in a reconnaissance flight in search of the missing climbers.

In first round of the reconnaissance mission, no traces of Daniele and Tom were found and their camps were sighted following cloudy weather at Nanga Parbat. The helicopter returned for refuelling and then carried out another visual recognition mission.

The helicopter dropped Ali Sadpara and his collogues at base camp. Ali Sadpara said that tent of the missing climbers was detected at Camp-3. The team is waiting at base camp to receive additional photographic and video information.

Source said that the rescue team would decide on Friday to proceed to Camp-3 to trace the missing mountaineers. This was fifth attempt of Nardi to summit Nanga Parbat and first attempt of Tom Ballard. The mother of Tom had also died at Nanga Parbat in 1995.

Ambassador of Italy to Pakistan Stefano Pontecorvo in a tweet has thanked Pakistan Army for providing assistance in search of the climbers despite tension with India. He has expressed his wish to hear a speedy and positive outcome of the operation.

Karar Haidari, spokesperson for Alpine Club of Pakistan, told Dawn that army set an example by launching the rescue operation despite having tension with India.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2019