Canadian mountaineer falls to death on Pakistan’s K2

A Canadian national who was attempting to climb Pakistan’s K2 mountain has fallen to his death, officials said Saturday. (Shutterstock)
Updated 07 July 2018
Follow

Canadian mountaineer falls to death on Pakistan’s K2

  • The 53-year-old’s death was confirmed by the tour company that organized his trip
  • K2 is the world’s second highest peak, it is often deemed a more challenging climb than the highest peak, Mount Everest

ISLAMABAD: A Canadian national who was attempting to climb Pakistan’s K2 mountain has fallen to his death, officials said Saturday.
The 53-year-old was between camps 2 and 3 on the notoriously challenging 8,611 meters (28,251 feet) peak when the accident happened, an official of the Gilgit-Baltistan Tourism department told AFP.
His death was confirmed by Sakhawat Hussain of Summit Karakoram, the tour company that organized his trip.
Hussain said that he had received notification from the base camp that the Canadian “had fallen to his death and his body has been moved to advance base camp,” adding that he was in contact with family members.

 

Also known as the “Savage Mountain,” it is often deemed a more challenging climb than the highest peak, Mount Everest.
It was first summited in 1954. Since then, just 306 people have made it to the top, while 80 have died trying, according to the 8000ers website.
Nestled between the western end of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush mountains and the Karakoram range, Gilgit-Baltistan has 18 of the world’s 50 highest peaks.

FASTFACTS

K2 is the world’s second highest peak and looms over the Karakoram range on the China-Pakistan border.


US says it will lift some trade sanctions on Belarus

Updated 3 sec ago
Follow

US says it will lift some trade sanctions on Belarus

VILNIUS: The United States will lift sanctions on Belarusian potash in the latest sign on a thaw between Washington and the isolated autocracy.
John Coale, the US special envoy for Belarus, met the country’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko for talks in the Belarusian capital of Minsk on Friday and Saturday.
A close ally of Russia, Minsk has faced Western isolation and sanctions for years. Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been repeatedly sanctioned by Western countries both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.