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Broad Peak Avalanche: Two Bodies Found, Helicopters Search for Others

Andoram Desk9 August 2026 · 14:33 UTC · 3 sources
Broad Peak Avalanche: Two Bodies Found, Helicopters Search for Others
Photograph: Sallahuddin shah via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

An avalanche on the normal route of Broad Peak, in Pakistan’s Karakoram, swept ten summit-bound climbers down the mountain on the morning of 30 July. Among them was Nirmal “Nims” Purja, the Nepali-born mountaineer whose ascents of the fourteen 8,000-metre peaks made him the most publicly recognisable climber of his generation. In the first thirty-six hours the four outlets covering the accident agreed on its outline and diverged sharply on its details, including when it happened, how high on the mountain, and how many bodies had been brought down.

What happened

The slide caught the party on the standard West Ridge route between Camp II and Camp III. Climbing puts the release at roughly 6,579 metres (21,580 feet), citing the climbers’ own GPS tracks, which narrow the window to between 8:57am and 9:30am local time. ExplorersWeb gives the altitude as 6,600 metres and the time as just before 9:30am, and Desnivel agrees on both. Alpinist Magazine is the outlier, reporting that the avalanche struck shortly before noon.

Samson Sharaf, a Pakistani mountaineer who mentored one of the missing guides and who supplied tracker plots to several outlets, told Climbing that “the overhang where the accident took place is clearly visible” and that “most probably the entire, snow-laden face moved, sweeping the entire traverse.”

The satellite trackers carried by the party recorded how far they were carried. Climbing reports that Mallory Geis’s device logged a fall of 543 metres (1,784 feet) and Nadhira Al Harthy’s a descent of 1,651 metres (5,417 feet). ExplorersWeb puts Purja’s fall at around 800 metres and says Al Harthy was carried almost to the foot of the mountain, with some of the party coming to rest close to Base Camp. Alpinist reports instead that several trackers went stationary above 7,800 metres, a figure that cannot be reconciled with the others and which no other outlet repeats.

Conditions before the slide

Two climbers who had abandoned their own attempt five days earlier described an unstable mountain. Ian Overton, who left for Skardu on 25 July with David Klein of Hungary, told ExplorersWeb that “there had been a massive wind storm the night of July 18 with a lot of blowing snow,” and that the benches between Camp III and Camp II carried “considerable snow/wind crust” and were “fairly punchy.” Below Camp II, he said, the snow was “unconsolidated and melting out quickly,” with “lots of loose rock and failing ice.” The pair monitored the forecast from Base Camp and concluded that “winds were too high, and humidity was elevated throughout the region, indicating likely fresh snow through the 29th” — the day before the avalanche.

Who was on the mountain

The Alpine Club of Pakistan named the party as Purja, Pakistani guide Sohail Sakhi, five other Nepali guides, and three clients from China, Oman and the United States. Named across the four reports are Purja; the Nepali guides Pur Bahadur Gurung, known as Yukta, Nima Sherpa, Nawang Thindu Sherpa, Gyalu Sherpa and Kili “Kilu” Pemba Sherpa; Sakhi of Pakistan; Mallory Geis of the United States; Nadhira Al Harthy of Oman; and Wang Zhong of China.

Al Harthy became the first Omani woman to summit Everest in 2019. Desnivel adds that she was the first Omani woman on K2, in 2022, and the first Omani to climb Nanga Parbat, in 2024, with Manaslu and Ama Dablam also to her name. She was on Broad Peak with Seven Summit Treks. Gurung was an IFMGA-certified guide working for Purja’s Elite Exped. Kili Pemba Sherpa was among the team that made the first winter ascent of K2 in 2021, alongside Purja himself.

Sakhi, an advocate of climbing without bottled oxygen who had summited all of Pakistan’s 8,000-metre peaks, was guiding Geis on her first 8,000-metre expedition; ExplorersWeb notes that he was using supplemental oxygen on this occasion. Geis had previously climbed 6,000-metre peaks in Nepal, one of them with Sakhi.

The recovery

The aerial call-out did not go in immediately. ExplorersWeb records that “for some reason, the call for an aerial rescue was only made hours later.” Two helicopters left for the mountain at around 8am Pakistan time the following morning carrying the climbers Sirbaz Khan and Sherzad Karim to assist the search. On the ground, a team from the Hunza-based outfitter Karakorum Expeditions — Waqar Ali, Sona Sherpa and two Pakistani climbers — worked the base of the avalanche path opposite Base Camp.

How many bodies had been recovered is where the reporting diverges most. Karakorum Expeditions initially reported four; ExplorersWeb appended a correction to its own article noting that “later information suggests that only two bodies were recovered.” Desnivel also reported four. A press release from the Commissioner of Baltistan, cited by Climbing, put the figure at three, naming Gurung, Al Harthy and Geis. Climbing subsequently reported a further four bodies brought down to Camp 1 at 5,600 metres (18,368 feet), naming Purja, Wang Zhong, Nima Sherpa and Kili Pemba Sherpa, and noted that one body had been sighted much higher on the mountain where recovery was judged too dangerous to attempt.

Elite Exped confirmed the deaths of Purja and Nima Sherpa in a social media post on 1 August and said it had “received confirmation that other members of the expedition sadly did not survive.” The president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, Irfan Arshad Khan, publicly asked the company to hold back, commenting: “Pl[ease] stop spreading such information, till no human has reached them.” Karakorum Expeditions said two of its own members were caught in the slide and remained out of contact, adding that a tracker had shown “a slight movement signal, giving us hope.”

What Purja was attempting

In a statement to Climbing, Elite Exped said Purja was on Broad Peak “as part of his own expedition, the primary objective of which was to continue his Hat-Trick Project in support of the Nimsdai Foundation,” and that he added Broad Peak shortly before travelling to Pakistan. It would have been his thirteenth summit toward climbing all fourteen 8,000-metre peaks a second time without supplemental oxygen, leaving only Cho Oyu, at 8,188 metres (26,864 feet), outstanding. He was climbing with Gurung and Nima Sherpa. The team made its attempt, the company said, “alongside other climbing groups during the final weather window of the season.”

What is not yet confirmed

Three things remain unsettled across the reporting. The time of the avalanche: three outlets place it between roughly 9:00am and 9:30am, one places it shortly before noon. The altitude: 6,579 metres by GPS, or approximately 6,600 metres. The number of bodies recovered, which was revised repeatedly within a single day and which no source treats as final. Broad Peak’s own elevation is given as 8,051 metres (26,414 feet) by three outlets and 8,047 metres by Desnivel. No cause for the release has been established, and no investigation has been announced.

Sources referenced

Written by Andoram from four independently published reports, each linked above. We synthesise facts and reproduce no source text. Where accounts conflict, both versions are given rather than resolved. This is a developing story and will be updated as details are confirmed.

Coverage timeline

This page is an automatically compiled index of third-party reporting. Headlines and links belong to their publishers; Andoram reproduces no article text. Last compiled 9 Aug 2026 14:33 UTC.

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