ISLAMABAD — An investigation has been launched into the dying of a Pakistani porter close to the height of the world’s most treacherous mountain, a Pakistani mountaineer stated Saturday, following allegations that dozens of climbers keen to succeed in the summit had walked previous the person after he was gravely injured in a fall.
The accusations surrounding occasions on July 27 on K2, the world’s second-highest peak, overshadowed a file established by Norwegian climber Kristin Harila and her Sherpa information Tenjin. By climbing K2 that day, they grew to become the world’s quickest climbers, scaling the world’s 14 highest mountains in 92 days.
Harila rejected any accountability for the dying of the porter, Mohammed Hassan, a 27-year-old father of three who slipped and fell off a slender path in a very harmful space of K2 referred to as the bottleneck. In an Instagram put up Friday, she wrote that she felt “offended at how many individuals have been blaming others for this tragic dying” and that nobody was at fault.
Harila was defending herself towards allegations from two different climbers who have been on K2 that day, Austrian Wilhelm Steindl and German Philip Flaemig. The pair had aborted their climb due to tough climate situations, however stated they reconstructed the occasions later by reviewing drone footage.
The footage confirmed dozens of climbers passing a gravely injured Hassan as an alternative of coming to his rescue, Steindl instructed The Related Press on Saturday. He alleged that the porter might have been saved if the opposite climbers, together with Harila and her workforce, had given up makes an attempt to succeed in the summit.
Steindl added that the footage reveals “a person making an attempt to rub (Hassan’s) chest, making an attempt to maintain him heat, to maintain him alive in some way. You’ll be able to see that the person is determined.”
“We all know by now that this was his good friend, additionally a Pakistani excessive altitude porter,” Steindl instructed AP. “And what you additionally see within the drone footage is a line of 70 climbers marching in direction of the summit.”
“There’s a double normal right here. If I or every other Westerner had been mendacity there, every part would have been completed to avoid wasting them,” Steindl stated. “Everybody would have needed to flip again to deliver the injured particular person again right down to the valley.”
Steindl additionally stated that July 27 was the one day on this season on which situations have been adequate for mountaineers to succeed in the summit of K2, which explains why there have been so many climbers who have been so wanting to get to the highest.
“I don’t wish to type of immediately blame anyone,” Steindl stated. “I’m simply saying there was no rescue operation initiated and that’s actually very, very tragic as a result of that’s really essentially the most regular factor one would do in a state of affairs like that.”
Harila instructed Sky Information that Hassan had been dangling from a rope, head down, after his fall on the bottleneck, which she described as “most likely essentially the most harmful a part of K2.” She stated that after about an hour, her workforce was in a position to pull him again onto the path.
In some unspecified time in the future, she and one other particular person from her workforce determined to proceed to the highest whereas one other workforce member stayed with Hassan, giving him heat water and oxygen from his personal masks, the climber stated.
Harila stated she determined to proceed shifting towards the summit as a result of her ahead fixing workforce additionally bumped into difficulties which she didn’t additional element within the interview.
Requested about Hassan’s gear, Harila stated that he didn’t put on a down go well with and he didn’t have gloves, nor did he have oxygen. “We didn’t see any signal of both a masks or oxygen tank,” she stated.
In the meantime, an investigation has been launched into Hassan’s dying, stated Karrar Haidri, the secretary of the Pakistan Alpine Membership, a sports activities group that additionally serves because the governing physique for mountaineering in Pakistan. The investigation is being performed by officers within the Gilgit-Baltistan area which has jurisdiction over K2, stated Haidri.
Anwar Syed, the top of Lela Peak Expedition, the corporate that Hassan was working for, stated he died about 150 meters (490 toes) beneath the summit. He stated a number of folks tried to assist, offering oxygen and heat, to no avail.
Syed stated that due to the bottleneck’s harmful situations, it will not be potential to retrieve Hassan’s physique and hand it to the household. He stated his firm had given cash to Hassan’s household and would proceed to assist, however didn’t elaborate.
Requested about Hassan’s obvious lack of apparatus, Syed stated the expedition firm pays cash to porters to purchase gear, and that Hassan was paid the agreed upon quantity.
Steindl’s fellow climber, Flaemig, alleged in an interview with the Austrian newspaper Der Commonplace that Hassan had no high-altitude expertise. “He wasn’t geared up correctly. He didn’t have expertise. He was a base camp porter and for the primary time was picked to be a high-altitude porter. He wasn’t certified for this,” he stated.
Steindl visited Hassan’s household and arrange a crowd-funding marketing campaign. After three days, donations reached greater than 114,000 euros ($125,000) Saturday.
“I noticed the struggling of the household,” Steindl instructed AP. “The widow instructed me that her husband did all this in order that his youngsters would have an opportunity in life, in order that they might go to high school.”
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Grieshaber reported from Berlin.