ISLAMABAD (AP) – An investigation has been launched into the death of a Pakistani porter near the summit of the world’s most treacherous mountain, a Pakistani mountaineer said Saturday, following allegations that dozens of climbers eager to reach the summit ran too close to the man afterward. . He was seriously injured in his fall.
The accusations surrounding the events of 27 July K2, the second highest peak in the worldeclipsed the record set by a Norwegian climber Christine Harrilla And her guide, Sherpa Tenjin. By climbing K2 that day, they became the fastest climbers in the world, Climb the 14 highest mountains in the world in 92 days.
Hareela denied any responsibility for the death of 27-year-old porter Mohamed Hassan and father of three who slipped and fell from a narrow gorge in a particularly dangerous area of K2 known as the bottleneck. She wrote in an Instagram post on Friday that she was “outraged by the number of people blaming others for this tragic death” and that no one was at fault.
Harela was defending herself against the allegations of two other climbers who were on K2 that day, Austrian Wilhelm Steindl and German Philipp Flemig. The couple aborted the climb due to difficult weather conditions, but said they later reconstructed the events by reviewing drone footage.
The footage showed dozens of climbers running past a seriously injured Hassan instead of coming to his rescue, Steindl told the Associated Press on Saturday. He claimed that the porter could have been saved if other climbers, including Harila and her team, had given up attempts to reach the summit.
Steindl added that the footage shows “a man trying to rub his chest, trying to keep it warm, to somehow keep him alive. You can see that the man is desperate.”
“We now know that this was his friend, also a Pakistani senior bearer,” Stindel told the Associated Press. “And what you also see in the drone footage is a line of 70 climbers walking toward the summit.”
“There is a double standard here. “If I or any other Westerner had been lying there,” Steindl said, “everything would have been done to save them.” “Everyone had to go back to bring the injured person back to the valley.”
Steindl also said that July 27 was the only day in the season when conditions were good enough for mountaineers to reach the summit of K2, which explains why there were so many climbers who were so eager to get to the summit.
“I don’t want to directly blame anyone,” Stindel said. “I’m just saying no rescue has been initiated and that’s really very tragic because that’s actually the most normal thing one could do in a situation like this.”
Harila told Sky News that Hassan was hanging from a rope, head down, after falling into the neck of a bottle, which she described as “probably the most dangerous part of K2.” About an hour later, she said, her team was able to pull him back onto the road.
At one point, she and another person from her team decided to continue driving while another team member stayed with Hassan, giving him warm water and oxygen from his mask, the climber said.
Harila said that she decided to keep moving towards the top because her forward-oriented team also faced difficulties, which she did not elaborate on in the interview.
When asked about Hassan’s equipment, Harila said he had no feather suit, no gloves, and no oxygen. “We saw no sign of a mask or an oxygen tank,” she said.
Meanwhile, an investigation has been launched into Hasan’s death, said Karrar Haidari, secretary of the Pakistan Alpine Club, a sports organization that also serves as the governing body for mountaineering in Pakistan. Heidari said the investigation is being carried out by officials in the Gilgit-Baltistan region which has jurisdiction over K2.
Anwar Syed, head of the Lela Peak Expedition, the company handling the Harila mission, said Hassan died 150 meters (490 feet) from the summit. He said that many people tried to help, by providing oxygen and warmth, but to no avail.
Sayed said that because of the serious bottleneck conditions, it would not be possible to recover Hassan’s body and hand it over to the family. He said his company has given the money to Hassan’s family and will continue to provide assistance, but he did not elaborate further.
Asked about Hassan’s apparent lack of equipment, Syed said that the expedition company pays porters to buy the equipment, and that Hassan has been given the agreed amount.
Steindl’s fellow climber, Flemig, claimed in an interview with Austrian newspaper Der Standard that Hassan had no high-altitude experience. It was not properly equipped. He had no experience. He was a porter at the base camp and for the first time was chosen to be a porter at high altitude. “He wasn’t qualified for that,” he said.
Steindl visits Hassan’s family and sets up a crowdfunding campaign. Three days later, donations reached more than 114,000 euros ($125,000) on Saturday.
“I saw the family’s struggle,” Steindl told the Associated Press. “The widow told me her husband did all this so that his children would have a chance in life, so that they could go to school.”
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Grieshaber reported from Berlin.
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