SKARDU: Celebrated Nepali climber Nirmal Purja, who set a record for the fastest ascent of the world’s 14 highest mountains, died in an avalanche during an expedition in Pakistan, his company said on Saturday.
“Today it is with profound sadness and immense heartbreak that we confirm that Nirmal ‘Nimsdai’ Purja tragically lost his life following the avalanche on Broad Peak,” his expedition organising company Elite Exped said in an Instagram post.
“We have also received confirmation that other members of the expedition sadly did not survive,” it added, without giving details.
Purja, 43, and nine others had been missing since Thursday after being struck by an avalanche on the 8,051-metre (26,414-foot) Broad Peak, the world’s 12th highest mountain, a technically difficult climb in Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan region.
Purja, who served with British special forces as a Gurkha, completed the record-breaking feat in six months in 2019. He became widely known internationally after the Netflix documentary chronicling his journey “14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible” was released two years later.
The 10 mountaineers were caught in an avalanche around midday on Thursday. Six of the 10 climbers were Nepalis and the others were from Pakistan, Oman, the US and China.
Powerful avalanche
The avalanche struck while the mountaineers were on a mission to summit Broad Peak (8,047 metres, 26,400 feet) on Thursday while the team were ascending at an altitude of around 6,600 metres, according to regional authorities.
The expedition comprised 10 people — including Purja, five Nepalis, a Pakistani, an Omani, an American, and a climber from China.
The team were last in contact on Thursday morning, the official statement said, with reports emerging that evening of the powerful avalanche.
“Data from their tracking devices indicates that they were thrown hundreds of metres down the mountainside,” Naila Kiani, from Pakistan’s Alpine Club, told Le Monde newspaper.
Super peaks
Purja, 43, had written on X this week that he was close to becoming the first person to climb all 14 “super peaks” twice without oxygen.
“Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down,” he wrote.
Purja, who served with Britain’s Brigade of Gurkhas before joining the Special Boat Squadron of the Royal Marines, has broken multiple climbing records since becoming a full-time mountaineer and tour guide.
He climbed all 14 “eight-thousanders” (peaks above 8,000 metres) in six months and six days between April and October 2019 — then a record.
Broad Peak is the world’s 12th highest mountain, located in the Karakoram range in northern Pakistan, and is regarded as one of the toughest and most technical climbs of all the 8,000-metre-plus ascents.
It was first summited in 1957 by an Austrian team.
