Chances of survival are slowly fading for two climbers that went missing on 27th June. Attempting to scale the treacherous Nanga Parbat, dubbed the “Killer Mountain”, Alberto Zerain Berasatei of Spain and Mariano Galacan of Argentina lost contact with their group due to poor weather conditions.
Karrar Haidri, a spokesman of Pakistan’s Alpine Club, said the climbers went missing since Saturday while attempting to climb the 8,126-meter summit, known as the Killer Mountain in Gilgit-Baltistan region in north of Pakistan.
“A 14-member team of foreigners along with 50 local guides and porters started their campaign on June 18, but they had to quit their mission due to bad weather. Twelve members of the team have returned to the base camp while two of them are still missing,” said Haidri.
The organizer of the escapade,Summit Karakoram, has since sent multiple rescue teams but they have all had to retreat due to the extremely poor weather conditions.
According to Summit Karakoram, the two climbers stopped at an altitude of 6,100 meters for couple of days due to poor weather and when they restarted their campaign they lost the contact.
“Zerain and Galvan were last contacted through satellite device at 10:21 p.m. local time on Saturday when they were a little above 6,400 meters. This altitude is not considered dangerous, but the two mountaineers chose the hardest route which has been successfully completed only once in history,” said the organizer.
“They went to the high camp and we have not been able to contact them since,” the head of tourism for Gilgit-Baltistan region, Iqbal Hussain, said.
Northern Pakistan is a region famed for it’s dangerously high peaks. It’s home to the second highest peak in the world, K2 at 8,611 metres. Nanga Parbat took the lives of 30 hopeful climbers before the first succesful summit in 1953.
