ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani climber was killed and Italian and Pakistani members of the same expedition were injured after being caught in an avalanche on a mountain in remote northern Pakistan, a mountaineering group said Tuesday.
Pakistan’s Alpine Club said the incident took place Monday when four Italian and three Pakistani mountaineers were descending a peak in the Ishkoman Valley. Pakistan’s military was dispatching a helicopter to rescue the climbers, who have multiple injuries, it said.
The four Italian climbers involved are expedition leader Tarcisio Bellò, Luca Morellato, David Bergamin and Tino Toldo.
Italian Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo confirmed Monday’s incident happened in the northern district of Ghizar, but gave no further details. The Alpine Club statement said the details involving the incident were still sketchy.
In a separate incident Monday, two Chinese mountaineers have been reported missing in another area in northern Pakistan, said Karrar Haidri, secretary of the Alpine Club.
He said Pakistani authorities were trying to dispatch a helicopter to trace and rescue them.
Haidri said he was confident that the body of the Pakistani mountaineer and injured Italian and Pakistani mountaineers would be brought to the base camp by helicopter and that all arrangements were in place to send them to a nearby hospital.
“I am sure the army helicopter will fly today despite harsh weather,” he told The Associated Press.
Earlier, a Pakistani tour operator who arranged the expedition, Ashraf Aman, said volunteers from the area were trying to reach the exact area where the stranded mountaineers were waiting for the help.
Mountaineers from across the world travel to Pakistan every year to try scaling its high northern mountain ranges. Harsh weather and conditions often prove a test for the most experienced of climbers.
Earlier this year, two European climbers — Italian Daniele Nardi and Briton Tom Ballard — were killed during bad winter weather on Nanga Parbat, which is the world’s ninth-tallest mountain at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet).
Nardi, from near Rome, had attempted to scale Nanga Parbat in winter several times. Ballard’s disappearance hit his homeland particularly hard as he is the son of Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to scale Mount Everest alone.
She died at age 33 descending the summit of K2.
Pakistani climber killed, Italians injured by avalanche
Pakistani climber killed, Italians injured by avalanche
- Military was dispatching a helicopter to rescue the climbers
- Mountaineers were descending a peak in the Ishkoman Valley
Government says Pakistan’s IT exports hit record monthly high in December
- Finance adviser says IT exports crossed $400 million for first time in a month
- Pakistan aims to double exports to $60 billion in four years, with IT a key driver
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s information technology exports climbed to a record $437 million in December, crossing the $400 million mark for the first time on a monthly basis, the government’s finance adviser Khurram Schehzad said in a social media post on Monday.
The surge underscores the growing role of the tech sector as Pakistan seeks to boost exports while emerging from a prolonged economic crisis that drained foreign exchange reserves, widened balance-of-payments pressures and weakened the currency.
The government is now aiming for export-led growth as part of broader structural reforms under a $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan program.
“December 2025 exports reached $437 million — crossing $400 million in a month for the first time ever,” Schehzad said in a post on X, adding that this represented 23 percent month-on-month growth from November and 26 percent year-on-year growth compared with December 2024.
For the first half of the current fiscal year, IT exports reached $2.24 billion, up 20 percent from a year earlier, making the sector the largest and most consistent contributor within services exports, he said.
Pakistan has been under pressure to sharply lift exports as it works to stabilize its economy.
Earlier this month, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said the country must double its exports to $60 billion within four years or risk returning to the IMF.
Pakistan’s IT exports have been on a steady upward trajectory in recent years. They reached a record $3.8 billion in the 2024–25 financial year, according to official data.
The momentum has carried into the current fiscal year, with IT exports posting 19 percent year-on-year growth during the first five months from July to November.
Exports during the period stood at $1.8 billion, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan.
The government has said it sees the technology sector as a key driver of foreign exchange earnings and job creation as Pakistan seeks to lock in recent macroeconomic gains and attract new investment.
