LatestShawn Raboutou Makes V14/15 First Ascent in Patagonia
Andoram.
⚲SearchSubscribe
Karakoram Dispatch

NMA pays final tribute to three Broad Peak avalanche victims

Andoram Desk5 September 2026 · 02:45 UTC · 3 sources

An avalanche struck a ten-member mountaineering expedition on Broad Peak in Pakistan’s Karakoram range on 30 July, killing all ten climbers, according to Arab News Pakistan, Rock and Ice, ExplorersWeb and Geo News. The group, led by British-Nepali climber Nirmal “Nims” Purja, included mountaineers from Nepal, Pakistan, Oman, China, Britain and the United States, and the recovery of their bodies from the mountain has continued in stages over the following weeks Arab News Pakistan Rock and Ice ExplorersWeb Geo News.

What happened

The ten climbers, representing four separate expeditions travelling on similar schedules, left Broad Peak Base Camp, at roughly 4,877 metres (16,000 feet), on the morning of 28 July and followed fixed ropes toward Camp I at about 5,639 metres (18,500 feet), Rock and Ice reported Rock and Ice. Their push formed what Rock and Ice described as the second wave of summit attempts that season, following an earlier group that had made a summit bid ten days before them. GPS data showed all four teams at Camp II, around 6,248 metres (20,500 feet), at 5:33 a.m. on 30 July, continuing to climb by 7:30 a.m.; Purja’s tracker recorded 6,659 metres (21,847 feet) just before 9 a.m., the highest point he reached. The avalanche struck as the climbers moved between Camp 2 and Camp 3 on the mountain’s normal route, at an altitude of about 6,600 metres (21,650 feet), according to Arab News Pakistan and ExplorersWeb Arab News Pakistan ExplorersWeb. ExplorersWeb reported that the slide may have been triggered by a falling cornice or serac from a snowy rib above Camp 3, rather than a slab avalanche, and that it flowed into two adjacent gullies on either side of the ridge, sweeping climbers off route. Trackers later showed that climbers had fallen hundreds of metres into terrain that was difficult to access, with two bodies coming to rest near the base of the mountain.

Jenjen Lama of Seven Summit Treks witnessed and filmed the avalanche from K2 at around 9 a.m. according to Rock and Ice, or around 9:30 a.m. Pakistan time according to ExplorersWeb, and radioed Base Camp, but received no answer; staff there reportedly assumed the radios had simply been switched off to conserve battery Rock and Ice ExplorersWeb. With no cell phone or internet coverage in the Baltoro region and Starlink not functioning there, it was only in the evening that Base Camp staff grew concerned enough to ask Seven Summit Treks headquarters in Kathmandu to check the climbers’ GPS trackers, which revealed sudden drops in altitude, according to Rock and Ice and ExplorersWeb. ExplorersWeb put the delay between the avalanche and the realisation that something was wrong at roughly ten hours. Pakistani rescuer Abid Baig told ExplorersWeb he was at Camp 2 on K2 at the time and did not witness the avalanche himself, only learning of it that evening by radio, and suggested Jenjen Lama may have filmed a separate slide, since the actual avalanche path runs through a gully not easily visible from Base Camp. Baig also said no climbers were at Base Camp that day, since all were on K2 or Broad Peak, and that some staff who saw the slide assumed it was a routine occurrence.

The people involved

Purja, 43, was attempting to become the first person to climb all 14 peaks above 8,000 metres without supplemental oxygen twice, with Broad Peak as his second-to-last remaining peak before Cho Oyu, at 8,188 metres (26,864 feet) in China, Rock and Ice reported Rock and Ice. He climbed with Pur Bahadur “Yukta” Gurung, 37, a recently IFMGA-certified guide who had worked on a National Geographic Everest documentary, and Nima Sherpa, 36, both outfitted through Purja’s company, Elite Exped. A Seven Summit Treks team supported Nadhira Al Harthy, 48, of Oman, the first Omani woman to summit Everest in 2019 and herself pursuing a 14-peak record, guided by Gyalu Sherpa, described in Rock and Ice’s reporting as either 46 or 47, and Nawang Thindu Sherpa, 28, the youngest climber on the mountain with five 8,000-metre ascents. Gyalu Sherpa held a Guinness World Record for climbing Kangchenjunga, at 8,586 metres (28,169 feet), three times in one season, and had made winter ascents of Everest and Makalu Arab News Pakistan. A third team from Imagine Nepal, run by Mingma Gyalge “Mingma G” Sherpa, who was separately guiding on K2, consisted of guide Kili Pemba “Kilu” Sherpa, 45, and Chinese client Wang Zhong, who was nearing completion of his own 14-peak quest. Kilu Sherpa had just completed his own 14-peak record on Nanga Parbat, at 8,126 metres (26,660 feet), was a 20-time Everest summiteer, and had taken part in the first winter ascent of K2 in 2021. The fourth team comprised Pakistani guide Sohail Sakhi, 33, known for summiting several 8,000-metre peaks often without supplemental oxygen, and American client Sarah Mallory Geis, 39, organised through Sakhi’s company, Moving Mountains.

The response

Pakistan Army helicopters flew over Broad Peak on 31 July searching for survivors while a joint Pakistani-Nepali team searched the avalanche debris on foot, Arab News Pakistan, Rock and Ice and ExplorersWeb all reported Arab News Pakistan Rock and Ice ExplorersWeb. That day, the bodies of Al Harthy and Gurung were recovered, along with a detached leg later identified as Geis’s. Screenshots suggesting slight movement in Purja’s GPS tracker briefly fuelled online speculation that some climbers might still be alive, but hopes faded when helicopters returned to Skardu without finding additional survivors. Using commercial drones borrowed from K2 climbers, Mingma G and other Nepali rescuers located a cluster of five bodies at around 5,898 metres (19,350 feet), including Purja, identifiable by his down suit, and a sixth body alone on a cliff band above 5,974 metres (19,600 feet). Mingma G and senior guide Sirbaz Khan assembled a nine-person recovery team on 1 August and established a temporary Advanced Base Camp, climbing that evening and confirming by the morning of 2 August that the cluster comprised Purja, Nima Sherpa, Wang Zhong, Kilu Sherpa and Gyalu Sherpa. Rescue teams located Sohail Sakhi’s backpack and tracker at the base of the mountain, confirming the lone body as Nawang Thindu Sherpa. Seven Summit Treks climbers Dawa Sherpa and Pem Dorje Sherpa attempted to recover Thindu’s body on 2 August using 1,350 feet of rope, though Pem Dorje told Outside the task needed eight people when only two were available. On the third day after the avalanche, rescuers Sirbaz Khan and Abid Baig narrowly escaped a secondary avalanche while probing debris, which ExplorersWeb reported buried the earlier debris under further snow and ice, along with Baig’s backpack and electronics. The search for Sakhi, Geis and Thindu was temporarily suspended after more than a week, according to the Alpine Club of Pakistan, with Baig telling ExplorersWeb that he and Khan planned to return by the end of September once the debris had melted. Geo News reported that on 6 August, five bodies were moved to Skardu, and on 13 August the Alpine Club of Pakistan announced that Sakhi’s body had been recovered by local volunteers from Shigar — named as Muhammad Nadeem, Muhammad Bashir and Abu Zar — acting on their own initiative, and moved from Camp One to Base Camp for an expected airlift to Skardu Geo News. Arab News Pakistan reported that bodies of three Nepali mountaineers — Kilu Sherpa, Gyalu Sherpa and Nima Sherpa — were returned to Kathmandu, while ExplorersWeb reported their remains were due to be sent the day after its article was published. Purja’s body was repatriated to the United Kingdom as he was a British citizen, though the Nepal Mountaineering Association had hoped to bring it to Nepal for a tribute first, ExplorersWeb reported.

A candlelight vigil for the climbers was held in Islamabad at the Pakistan Sports Complex, where Nepal’s Ambassador to Pakistan, Rita Dhital, said the world had lost ten of its best climbers and Nepal six in a single day, and praised Sirbaz Khan and his team for their conduct during the recovery, Arab News Pakistan reported Arab News Pakistan. Lakpa Gyaljen Sherpa, chairperson of the Nepal Sherpa Association, said the government should look after the families and children of the deceased and work to make mountaineering safer. Gambu Sherpa, chairperson of Khijidemba Village Municipality, Gyalu Sherpa’s home area, called the deaths the biggest loss in Nepal’s mountaineering sector and noted that Gyalu held a Guinness World Record for climbing Kangchenjunga three times in 15 days.

Background and context

Broad Peak, at 8,051 metres (26,414 feet) in Pakistan’s Karakoram range near K2, is described by Arab News Pakistan and Rock and Ice as the world’s 12th-highest mountain Arab News Pakistan Rock and Ice. Jenjen Lama told Rock and Ice that a week-long storm brought heavy snowfall to the Karakoram from 22 to 26 July 2026, and that while standard practice calls for waiting five days after snowfall before climbing, narrow weather windows in the range often push climbers to take risks sooner. Broad Peak’s standard route runs from Camp I to Camp II, crosses an exposed avalanche slope, and continues to Camp III, at roughly 7,010 metres (23,000 feet), before the summit. American climber Napier Fuller, part of an earlier summit wave on 18–19 July, described the route to Rock and Ice as dangerous with frequent rockfall, saying he had himself been struck in the head by falling rock. ExplorersWeb reported that there is no established protocol requiring climbers to radio Base Camp to confirm safety after a major avalanche nearby, and that climbers on Pakistan’s 8,000-metre peaks had noted a broader pattern of limited communication and reluctance to share information among commercial teams in 2026 ExplorersWeb. Geo News reported that Purja’s company confirmed there were no survivors of the avalanche Geo News.

What is not yet confirmed

Several details remain unsettled across the reporting. ExplorersWeb’s sourcing raised doubts about whether the avalanche filmed by Jenjen Lama from K2 was in fact the same slide that struck the Broad Peak team, with Abid Baig suggesting it may have been a separate event given the limited visibility of the actual avalanche path from Base Camp ExplorersWeb. Gyalu Sherpa’s age is given inconsistently within Rock and Ice’s own account, as either 46 or 47 Rock and Ice. The precise cause of the avalanche — whether a falling cornice or serac, as ExplorersWeb suggested, or another mechanism — has not been independently confirmed. As of 13 August, Geo News reported that two bodies remained missing and that rescue operations were ongoing, while ExplorersWeb reported plans for a further search attempt by the end of September once debris melts Geo News. It is not yet clear what, if any, changes to communication or safety protocols on Pakistan’s 8,000-metre peaks may follow the incident.

Sources referenced

Written by Andoram by combining 4 independently published reports, each linked above. We synthesise facts and reproduce no source text.

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 5 Sep 2026 02:45 UTC.

Read next

Shawn Raboutou Makes V14/15 First Ascent in Patagonia

Shawn Raboutou Makes V14/15 First Ascent in Patagonia