Investigation launched into claims record-breaking mountaineers climbed over dying porter on K2
An investigation has been launched into claims climbers left a porter to die close to the height of the world’s most treacherous mountain, a mountaineer has mentioned.
Dozens of climbers are alleged to have walked past the Pakistani helper of their eagerness to achieve the summit of K2 after he was gravely injured in a fall.
The accusations surrounding the occasions on 27 July on the world’s second-highest peak overshadowed a record-breaking climb by Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila and her Nepalese information Tenjen (Lama) Sherpa. They grew to become the quickest climbers to scale the world’s 14 highest mountains, which took 92 days.
She has 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 the mountain often known as the bottleneck.
A mountaineer makes an attempt to assist Muhammad Hassan. Pic: ServusTV
She was defending herself in opposition to allegations made by two different climbers who had been on K2 that day, Austrian Wilhelm Steindl and German Philip Flaemig, who had aborted their climb due to hostile climate situations however mentioned they reconstructed occasions later by reviewing drone footage.
The footage appeared to point out dozens of climbers passing a gravely injured Mr Hassan as a substitute of coming to his rescue.
Mr Steindl alleged the porter might have been saved if the opposite climbers, together with Ms Harila and her group, had given up their try to achieve the summit.
“There is a double standard here. If I or any other Westerner had been lying there, everything would have been done to save them,” Mr Steindl instructed the Associated Press. “Everyone would have had to turn back to bring the injured person back down to the valley.”
Why was mountain porter left to die?
Harila says her group ‘tried for hours’ to save lots of man
However, talking to Sky News on Friday Ms Harila mentioned her group “tried for hours to save” Mr Hassan – and one group member even took off his oxygen masks and gave it to him as a result of he didn’t have his personal.
She mentioned Mr Hassan had been dangling from a rope the wrong way up after his fall on the bottleneck, which she described as “probably the most dangerous part of K2”.
She mentioned after round an hour her group had been capable of carry Mr Hassan again onto the path.
The group then determined to separate, she mentioned, together with her and Lama persevering with to the highest of the mountain as a result of her ahead fixing group had run into their very own difficulties.
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Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila with Nepali mountaineer Tenjen (Lama) Sherpa
Porter apparently lacked gear
Asked about Mr Hassan’s gear, Ms Harila mentioned he was not sporting a down go well with and didn’t have gloves, nor did he have oxygen. “We didn’t see any sign of either a mask or oxygen tank,” she mentioned.
After reaching the highest, Ms Harila filmed an “emotional” video celebrating their record-breaking climb.
She mentioned she solely found Mr Hassan had died as she climbed down the mountain, and mentioned she and her group had been unable to recuperate his physique as a result of it was “impossible to safely carry him down”.
K2, known as ‘killer mountain’, is positioned within the Karakorum mountain vary. File pic: AP
Investigation launched into dying
An investigation has been launched into Mr Hassan’s dying, based on Karrar Haidri, the secretary of the Pakistan Alpine Club, a sports activities organisation that additionally serves because the governing physique for mountaineering in Pakistan.
Anwar Syed, the top of the corporate dealing with Ms Harila’s expedition, Lela Peak Expedition, mentioned Mr Hassan died about 150m under the summit.
He mentioned a number of individuals tried to assist by offering oxygen and heat to no avail.
Mr Syed mentioned due to the bottleneck’s harmful situations it might not be doable to retrieve Mr Hassan’s physique and hand it to the household. He mentioned his firm had given cash to Mr Hassan’s household and would proceed to assist.
Asked about Mr Hassan’s obvious lack of kit, Mr Syed mentioned the expedition firm pays cash to porters to purchase gear and Mr Hassan was paid the agreed-upon quantity.
German cameraman Philip Flaemig
Claims Hassan had no high-altitude expertise
Mr Flaemig, the second climber to make the allegations, claimed Mr Hassan had no high-altitude expertise in an interview with Austrian newspaper Der Standard.
“He wasn’t equipped properly. He did not have experience. He was a base camp porter and for the first time was picked to be a high-altitude porter. He wasn’t qualified for this,” he mentioned.
Wilhelm Steindl with the household of Muhammad Hassan
Mr Steindl visited Mr Hassan’s household and arrange a crowdfunding marketing campaign, with donations reaching greater than €114,000 (£98,000) on Saturday.
“I saw the suffering of the family,” Mr Steindl instructed AP. “The widow told me that her husband did all this so that his children would have a chance in life, so that they could go to school.”
K2 is broadly thought-about one of many hardest peaks in mountaineering and as of February 2021, some 377 individuals had summited the mountain whereas 91 died attempting – a ratio of 1 dying for each 4 profitable climbs.
Experts say it’s much more harmful than Everest, the world’s tallest peak, as a result of much less of the mountain flattens off and it’s liable to avalanches and rock falls.