GILGIT: Shehroz Kashif and Fazal Ali, two mountaineers who had gone missing during their descent from Nanga Parbat on Tuesday, have been rescued following days-long rescue efforts by the Gilgit-Baltistan government and the Pakistan Army.

Mr Kashif, a resident of Lahore, and Mr Ali, a resident of Shimshal Valley, successfully scaled the 8,126m peak but they were reported missing on Tuesday morning as they were heading down the mountain.

Subsequently, local authorities initiated rescue efforts on Tuesday evening for their recovery. On the next day, the GB government announced that police officials and climbers, present at the base camp of Nanga Parbat, confirmed that telescope visuals showed the mountaineers were descending from Camp 4 in an “okay” condition.

However, the helicopters of the army could not rescue the climbers at the time due to unfavourable weather conditions. On Thursday morning, Home Secretary Iqbal Hussain Khan announced that the ground monitoring team had confirmed the mountaineers were descending from Camp 3 to Camp 2.

Diamer DC lauds ‘excellent coordination’ between control room and high altitude police

Later in the day, the media wing of the military, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that the ground rescue team had established physical contact with the mountaineers at Camp 2 while at 5:00 pm, both climbers managed to reach Camp 1. From Camp 1 — located at 19,000 feet — they were airlifted to Gilgit by helicopters.

In a statement, the ISPR said: “Pakistan Army aviation helicopters/pilots have successfully rescued both stranded mountaineers from Nanga Parbat and landed at Jaglot near Gilgit.”

In a comment on rescue efforts, Diamer Deputy Commissioner Fayyaz Ahmed said the “excellent coordination between the control room management at the base camp and the high-altitude police” led to the tracing of the stranded climbers.

Separately, Kashif’s official Facebook page posted that the climbers had reached Camp 2 and they were “fine health-wise”. It said that the mountaineers spent the night of July 5 in the open to wait for the weather to get clear and resumed their descent early in the morning. “The duo has shown great resilience and willpower to manage things themselves in such harsh and unfavourable conditions,” it added.

Sakhawat Hussain, general manager of Summit Karakoram which organised the expedition, said both climbers were “strong and healthy” despite spending nights at high altitude without tents.

Earlier, Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP) Secretary Karrar Haidri told Dawn that Mr Kashif had “set another world record by summiting Nanga Parbat”. He said the youngster had now scaled eight of the 14 peaks that were over 8,000 metres and added that he was aiming to become the youngest climber in the world to summit all 8,000-metre high mountains.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2022