An avalanche swept ten climbers to their deaths on Broad Peak in Pakistan’s Karakoram range in the last days of July 2026 — among them Nirmal “Nimsdai” Purja, the Nepal-born mountaineer who became one of the sport’s most recognizable names after his record-setting climb of all fourteen 8,000-metre peaks. By August 1, expedition organizer Elite Exped confirmed that none of the ten had survived.
- Date: 30 July 2026
- Location: Broad Peak (8,051 m / 26,414 ft), Karakoram range, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan
- Where on the mountain: the slope between Camp 2 and Camp 3, roughly 6,600 m
- Toll: all 10 climbers on the mountain, confirmed dead by 1 August
What happened
The ten-person team was climbing toward Broad Peak’s summit when the slope between Camp 2 and Camp 3 gave way, sweeping the entire group downhill. GPS trackers carried by several climbers later showed how far the slide carried them: Purja’s device recorded a fall of roughly 800 metres, and Nadhira Al Harthy’s showed she had been swept nearly all the way back to Base Camp.
In the days before the avalanche, the mountain had seen a spell of unstable weather: a windstorm on 18 July followed by rising humidity and fresh snowfall through 29 July. No official cause for the avalanche’s trigger has been announced.
Who died
- Nirmal Purja “Nimsdai” (Nepal/UK) — a former Gurkha and UK special forces soldier who set the record for climbing all fourteen 8,000m peaks in 189 days in 2019, later the subject of the Netflix documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible. He was attempting to become the first person to complete all fourteen eight-thousanders three times.
- Pur Bahadur Gurung “Yukta” (Nepal) — an IFMGA-certified mountain guide who had summited Everest ten times and climbed twelve of the world’s 8,000m peaks.
- Nadhira Ahmed Abdullah Al Harthy (Oman) — the first Omani woman to summit Mount Everest, in 2019; she had also climbed K2 and Manaslu.
- Kili Pemba Sherpa “Kilu” (Nepal) — a member of the team that made the first winter ascent of K2, in 2021.
- Nima Sherpa (Nepal) — mountain guide.
- Nawang Thindu Sherpa (Nepal) — mountain guide.
- Gyalu Sherpa (Nepal) — mountain guide.
- Sohail Sakhi (Pakistan) — local guide, leading an American client on the expedition.
- Mallory Geis (United States) — a climber from San Antonio, Texas, on her first attempt at an eight-thousand-metre peak.
- Wang Zhong (China) — member of the expedition team.
The search and recovery operation
Word of the avalanche reached Base Camp within hours, and a rescue effort began the following morning, 31 July, with helicopters and ground teams operating out of Camp 1. Drone flights spotted seven bodies on the mountain that day, though the terrain made recovery difficult and identification impossible from the air.
The Alpine Club of Pakistan coordinated the response. A team from the outfitter Karakorum Expeditions — a Pakistani operator unrelated to Andoram or any company we cover — recovered three bodies, later identified as Al Harthy, Gurung, and Geis, from the base of the avalanche path opposite Base Camp. Elite Exped, which had organized the expedition, flew in additional Nepali climbers to help, and nearby teams attempting K2 abandoned their own summit bids to join the search.
By 1 August, with several climbers still unaccounted for, Elite Exped announced on social media that all ten members of the team had died. Alpine Club of Pakistan vice president Karrar Haidri described the recovery effort as continuing “despite fading hopes.” As of this writing, not all of the bodies have been brought down from the mountain.
Nirmal Purja: a defining loss for mountaineering
Purja’s death has drawn the widest coverage of the ten, both because of his fame and because of what his loss represents for the climbing world. Nepal-born and a former Gurkha and UK special forces soldier, Purja became a household name in mountaineering circles — and well beyond them — after completing all fourteen of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks in 189 days in 2019, a record later broken in 2023. The feat, and Purja’s camera-ready style, became the subject of the 2021 Netflix documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible. He was on Broad Peak attempting to become the first person to summit all fourteen eight-thousanders three times, and separately, to climb all fourteen without supplemental oxygen. In a statement, Elite Exped called him “one of mountaineering’s greatest climbers.”
What we don’t know
Early reporting on the avalanche has not always agreed on the details. Initial accounts placed the slide at different times of day, a common feature of first-day coverage of a disaster in a remote, hard-to-communicate-from location. An early count of recovered bodies was revised more than once as identification proceeded. No investigation into what triggered the slide has been announced, and it is not yet confirmed whether all ten bodies have been recovered from the mountain. We will update this piece as that changes.
Context: Broad Peak and the Karakoram’s eight-thousanders
Broad Peak is one of five peaks above 8,000 metres in the Karakoram range, alongside K2, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II, and Nanga Parbat. It is often climbed as a secondary objective by expeditions also attempting K2, whose base camp lies within a day’s trek. The Karakoram’s eight-thousanders draw a fraction of the traffic of their Nepali Himalaya counterparts, but the terrain and weather are widely considered less forgiving — a reputation this accident will do nothing to soften.
This is a developing story. Andoram will update this piece as confirmed details emerge.