ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani army helicopter rescued on Tuesday four Italian and two Pakistani climbers stranded at an altitude of around 5,300 meters (17,390 feet) in the country’s north, after an avalanche struck the team the previous day, a mountaineering worker said. A Pakistani member of the team was killed.
The expedition was hit while descending a peak in the Ishkoman Valley, located in the northern district of Ghizar.
Karrar Haidri, head of Pakistan’s Alpine Club, told The Associated Press that the six surviving climbers were taken to a hospital in the nearby town of Gilgit for the treatment of injuries.
“Sadly, one Pakistani mountaineer was killed, but six other members of the expedition are being treated at a hospital,” he said.
“A Pakistan army helicopter was used for this complicated but successful rescue operation, despite the fact that the stranded mountaineers were present at an altitude of around 5,300 meters,” he added.
Ashraf Aman, a Pakistani tour operator who arranged the expedition, confirmed that Pakistan’s military had dispatched the helicopter earlier on Tuesday morning to rescue the climbers.
He said the body of the Pakistani mountaineer, Mohammad Imtiaz, would be brought down later.
Aman said none of the surviving team had life-threatening injuries.
The four Italian climbers involved are expedition leader Tarcisio Bellò, Luca Morellato, David Bergamin, and Tino Toldo.
Bellò said they were “very lucky” that they survived. “I think glacier collapsed and millions tons come down. We were very up at the mountain,” he said.
In a separate incident on Monday, two Chinese mountaineers were reported missing in another area in northern Pakistan, said Haidri. He said a rescue mission was planned to find them.
Mountaineers from across the world travel to Pakistan every year to try scaling its high northern mountains. 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 the peak 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 army helicopter saves 6 climbers hit by avalanche
Pakistani army helicopter saves 6 climbers hit by avalanche
- A Pakistani member of the team was killed
- Mountaineers were descending a peak in the Ishkoman Valley
Tens of thousands flee northwest Pakistan over fears of military operation
- More than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled remote Tirah region bordering Afghanistan
- Government says no military operation underway or planned in Tirah, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
BARA, Pakistan: More than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled a remote region in northwestern Pakistan bordering Afghanistan over uncertainty of a military operation against the Pakistani Taliban, residents and officials said Tuesday.
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif has denied the claim by residents and provincial authorities. He said no military operation was underway or planned in Tirah, a town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Speaking at a news conference in Islamabad, he said harsh weather, rather than military action, was driving the migration. His comments came weeks after residents started fleeing Tirah over fears of a possible army operation.
The exodus began a month after mosque loudspeakers urged residents to leave Tirah by Jan. 23 to avoid potential fighting. Last August, Pakistan launched a military operation against Pakistani Taliban in the Bajau r district in the northwest, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
Shafi Jan, a spokesman for the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, posted on X that he held the federal government responsible for the ordeal of the displaced people, saying authorities in Islamabad were retracting their earlier position about the military operation.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Suhail Afridi, whose party is led by imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has criticized the military and said his government will not allow troops to launch a full-scale operation in Tirah.
The military says it will continue intelligence-based operations against Pakistani Taliban, who are known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Though a separate group, it has been emboldened since the Afghan
Taliban returned to power in 2021. Authorities say many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuary in Afghanistan and that hundreds of them have crossed into Tirah, often using residents as human shields when militant hideouts are raided.
Caught in the middle are the residents of Tirah, who continued arriving in Bara.
So far, local authorities have registered roughly 10,000 families — about 70,000 people — from Tirah, which has a population of around 150,000, said Talha Rafiq Alam, a local government administrator overseeing the relief effort. He said the registration deadline, originally set for Jan. 23, has been extended to Feb. 5.
He said the displaced would be able to return once the law-and-order situation improves.
Among those arriving in Bara and nearby towns was 35-year-old Zar Badshah, who said he left with his wife and four children after the authorities ordered an evacuation. He said mortar shells had exploded in villages in recent weeks, killing a woman and wounding four children in his village. “Community elders told us to leave. They instructed us to evacuate to safer places,” he said.
At a government school in Bara, hundreds of displaced lined up outside registration centers, waiting to be enrolled to receive government assistance. Many complained the process was slow.
Narendra Singh, 27, said members of the minority Sikh community also fled Tirah after food shortages worsened, exacerbated by heavy snowfall and uncertain security.
“There was a severe shortage of food items in Tirah, and that forced us to leave,” he said.
Tirah gained national attention in September, after an explosion at a compound allegedly used to store bomb-making materials killed at least 24 people. Authorities said most of the dead were militants linked to the TTP, though local leaders disputed that account, saying civilians, including women and children, were among the dead.
