ISLAMABAD — An investigation has been launched into the demise of a Pakistani porter close to the height of the world’s most treacherous mountain, a Pakistani mountaineer mentioned 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 report established by Norwegian climber Kristin Harila and her Sherpa information Tenjin. By climbing K2 that day, they turned the world’s quickest climbers, scaling the world’s 14 highest mountains in 92 days.
Harila rejected any accountability for the demise of the porter, Mohammed Hassan, a 27-year-old father of three who slipped and fell off a slim path in a very harmful space of K2 generally known as the bottleneck. In an Instagram publish Friday, she wrote that she felt “indignant at how many individuals have been blaming others for this tragic demise” and that nobody was at fault.
Harila was defending herself in opposition to allegations from two different climbers who had been on K2 that day, Austrian Wilhelm Steindl and German Philip Flaemig. The pair had aborted their climb due to troublesome climate circumstances, however mentioned they reconstructed the occasions later by reviewing drone footage.
The footage confirmed dozens of climbers passing a gravely injured Hassan as a substitute of coming to his rescue, Steindl informed The Related Press on Saturday. He alleged that the porter may have been saved if the opposite climbers, together with Harila and her staff, had given up makes an attempt to succeed in the summit.
Steindl added that the footage reveals “a person attempting to rub (Hassan’s) chest, attempting to maintain him heat, to maintain him alive one way or the other. You’ll be able to see that the person is determined.”
“We all know by now that this was his pal, additionally a Pakistani excessive altitude porter,” Steindl informed 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 commonplace right here. If I or some other Westerner had been mendacity there, all the things would have been performed to avoid wasting them,” Steindl mentioned. “Everybody would have needed to flip again to carry the injured particular person again right down to the valley.”
Steindl additionally mentioned that July 27 was the one day on this season on which circumstances had been ok for mountaineers to succeed in the summit of K2, which explains why there have been so many climbers who had been so desperate to get to the highest.
“I don’t wish to type of straight blame anyone,” Steindl mentioned. “I’m simply saying there was no rescue operation initiated and that’s actually very, very tragic as a result of that’s truly essentially the most regular factor one would do in a state of affairs like that.”
Harila informed 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 mentioned that after about an hour, her staff was capable of pull him again onto the path.
Sooner or later, she and one other particular person from her staff determined to proceed to the highest whereas one other staff member stayed with Hassan, giving him heat water and oxygen from his personal masks, the climber mentioned.
Harila mentioned she determined to proceed transferring towards the summit as a result of her ahead fixing staff additionally bumped into difficulties which she didn’t additional element within the interview.
Requested about Hassan’s gear, Harila mentioned 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 mentioned.
In the meantime, an investigation has been launched into Hassan’s demise, mentioned 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, mentioned Haidri.
Anwar Syed, the top of Lela Peak Expedition, the corporate that Hassan was working for, mentioned he died about 150 meters (490 toes) under the summit. He mentioned a number of folks tried to assist, offering oxygen and heat, to no avail.
Syed mentioned that due to the bottleneck’s harmful circumstances, it might not be doable to retrieve Hassan’s physique and hand it to the household. He mentioned 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 mentioned 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 outfitted 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 mentioned.
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 informed AP. “The widow informed me that her husband did all this in order that his kids would have an opportunity in life, in order that they might go to highschool.”
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Grieshaber reported from Berlin.