All 10 Climbers Confirmed Dead After Broad Peak Avalanche in Pakistan, Including Nirmal Purja

An avalanche on Pakistan's Broad Peak has killed all 10 members of a climbing expedition led by Nirmal Purja, one of the most famous names in modern mountaineering, according to the Associated Press. Purja's company, Elite Exped, confirmed the deaths in a statement Saturday, closing out a grim, days-long search.

The avalanche struck Thursday morning on the West Ridge, the standard route up the 8,047-meter (26,401-foot) peak. GPS tracking data cited by Climbing magazine shows the slide hit between 8:57 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. local time at roughly 6,579 meters (21,580 feet), between Camp II and Camp III. American climber Mallory Geis's tracker recorded a sudden 543-meter drop. Omani climber Nadhira Al Harthy's tracker showed an even more severe fall, 1,651 meters, according to Climbing.

Pakistani mountaineer Samson Sharaf, who mentored missing guide Sohail Sakhi, told Climbing that "the overhang where the accident took place is clearly visible" in trail footage and that "most probably the entire, snow-laden face moved, sweeping the entire traverse."

Who died

The expedition included Purja, five Nepali guides, Pakistani guide Sohail Sakhi, and three clients from China, Oman and the United States, according to the Alpine Club of Pakistan. Elite Exped confirmed the deaths of Purja, Pur Bahadur "Yukta" Gurung, Nima Sherpa, Nadhira Al Harthy and Mallory Geis in earlier statements before confirming all 10 fatalities Saturday.

Al Harthy was the first Omani to summit Everest, according to the Guardian. Sakhi was a guide, geographer and high-altitude photographer for whom this was expected to be his final expedition, according to the Moving Mountains website cited by the AP. For Geis, it was her first attempt at an 8,000-meter peak in Pakistan.

Rescuers recovered four bodies Friday despite weather that grounded search helicopters for stretches, according to the AP. A local police official, Tahir Khan, said Saturday that Al Harthy's remains were being flown to Islamabad, while the bodies of Geis and Gurung remained at a hospital in Skardu. Military helicopters resumed the search for the remaining climbers Saturday.

Who Purja was

Purja, a Nepal-born former British Army Gurkha and UK Special Forces soldier known widely as "Nims Dai," climbed all 14 of the world's peaks above 8,000 meters in a record 189 days in 2019, a feat documented in the Netflix film "14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible." That record was broken in 2023. He also led the first team to summit K2 in winter, according to the Guardian.

"Records are made to be broken," Purja told the Guardian in 2019. "Someone one day will come along and be stronger. People are only limited by their imagination."

According to Elite Exped, Purja's Broad Peak climb was meant to be his 13th summit in a second run through all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen, a campaign the company called the "Hat-Trick Project" supporting the Nimsdai Foundation. His final planned summit in that project, Cho Oyu in Tibet, will not happen. He was climbing with longtime partners Gurung and Sherpa when the avalanche hit, the company said.

British adventurer Bear Grylls, who worked with Purja on the 2023 documentary "Finding Michael" to recover the body of British climber Michael Matthews, called the news "heartbreaking for so many climbers around the world who had a relationship with this remarkable and unique man."

A messy information trail

The confirmation process played out publicly and awkwardly. Elite Exped posted on Instagram that it had "received confirmation that other members of the expedition sadly did not survive" before all bodies were recovered, according to Climbing magazine. Irfan Arshad Khan, president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, publicly pushed back on the company's post, commenting: "Pl[ease] stop spreading such information, till no human has reached them."

That tension between an expedition company under pressure to inform grieving families quickly and a national alpine club insisting on physical confirmation before any death is declared isn't unusual after high-altitude accidents. GPS trackers can show a body's final resting position long before a recovery team can physically reach it in the Karakoram's terrain and weather.

Khan also praised the military and civilian rescuers and Sherpa guides involved in the search. "The mountains inspire us with their beauty, but they also remind us of the immense risks faced by those who venture into the high Himalaya and Karakoram," he said, according to the AP.

What's unresolved

Recovery teams backed by Pakistani military helicopters were still working to retrieve the remaining bodies as of Saturday, according to the AP. Broad Peak's accident record is long: avalanches, falling ice and rock, extreme altitude and fast-shifting weather have made it and its Karakoram neighbors some of the deadliest peaks on Earth for commercial expeditions. No official cause beyond the avalanche itself has been announced, and it remains unclear whether all 10 bodies will be recoverable given the terrain and conditions at nearly 21,600 feet.