After the death of a mountain carrier on the second highest mountain on earth, the K2, the responsible regional government has now ordered an investigation. Have mountaineering teams refused to help the Pakistani?
What exactly happened on the second highest mountain on earth, K2? This is now to be clarified by a commission of inquiry in Pakistan following the death of a 35-year-old Pakistani mountain porter. Witnesses are already being heard today, said Rahat Karim Baig, a member of an investigative commission, of the dpa news agency. “The most important testimony would be that of the other high-altitude porter who tied the rope with the dead porter and saw him fall,” Baig said. The role of professional tour operators should also be examined.
About two weeks ago, the Pakistani mountain porter Mohammed Hassan fell on the eight-thousander K2 and finally died. Hassan was the first fatality on K2 this season, according to the tourist board in the northern province of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Outrage videos on social networks
His death sparked an outcry after videos were posted on social media showing him alive at the scene. The recordings should show, among other things, how other mountaineers climb over the man’s body on the way to the summit.
A Bulgarian mountaineer told the online newspaper “Explorersweb” that the man had fallen. A Sherpa who was also there said in the newspaper that the mountain porter’s oxygen mask had apparently broken in the fall.
suspected failure to provide assistance
“It is unfortunate that no one stopped to help the dying man,” said Abu Zafar Sadiq, president of the Pakistan Alpine Club. Several avalanches were triggered on the day of the accident at a bottleneck on K2, the most difficult and deadliest point before the summit. Maybe that’s why mountaineers themselves didn’t rush to help, Sadiq said. “Some of the climbers were hit by the avalanches, but fortunately no one was swept away,” said Sadiq. “Another reason could be that people want to rush to fulfill their dream when they are only a few meters away from their destination. Whatever the circumstances, someone should have helped the poor guy,” Sadiq said.
A mountaineer from Tyrol and a German cameraman were also on K2 on the day of the accident, as the Austrian newspaper “Der Standard” reported. From the incident they got so initially nothing. On a drone recording, they are said to have sighted the dying porter Hassan when they had already returned to the base camp. “He died miserably there. It would only have taken three or four people to bring him down,” the newspaper quoted Tyrolean mountaineer Wilhelm Steindl as saying.
The Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila also climbed K2 on the day of the accident as part of a record hunt. In an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” Harila told about Hassan’s crash about a week ago. “He was hanging upside down on his rope. After our descent we found out that he had died.”
Repeated fatal accidents on eight-thousanders
Fatal accidents occur again and again in the Pakistani mountains and the neighboring countries in the Himalayas. The 8611 meter high K2 in Pakistan is the second highest mountain on earth and is considered extremely difficult. Reasons include the steep route and the risk of avalanches.
With information from Peter Hornung, ARD Studio New Delhi