10 Climbers Feared Missing After Avalanche in Pakistan

The British-Nepali climber Nirmal Purja and nine others were feared missing in Pakistan after an avalanche struck them on one of the world’s highest mountains on Thursday, an alpine club said.

The 10 climbers have been out of communication since the avalanche on Broad Peak around midday, the Alpine Club of Pakistan said in a statement on Thursday night. The club said it was working with the Pakistani authorities to facilitate a search-and-rescue operation.

Mr. Purja was accompanied by four other Nepalese mountaineers, Sohail Sakhi of Pakistan, an American, an Omani and a Chinese climber whose surname is Wang, according to the club, a nonprofit mountaineering organization. The 10th climber’s nationality was unclear. The statement identified Mr. Purja by his nickname, Nims Dai.

“Every possible effort is being made to ensure that helicopter support and all available rescue resources are mobilized at the earliest opportunity, subject to weather and operational conditions,” the Alpine Club said.

Neither the Pakistan Army nor Mr. Purja’s guiding company responded immediately to requests for comment on Friday.

Broad Peak is near Pakistan’s border with China in the Karakoram mountain range. It is the world’s 12th highest mountain, with a summit of 8,047 meters (26,400 feet) above sea level. It lies next to K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.

Mr. Purja, 43, is one of mountaineering’s most influential figures. After serving in the British Special Forces, he climbed all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in record time in 2019, a project that was chronicled in a 2021 Netflix documentary.

He repeated the feat in 2024, this time without supplemental oxygen, and dedicated it to two American women and their Nepalese guides who had died a year earlier in an avalanche on Shishapangma, one of the 14 peaks.

On Monday, Mr. Purja wrote on social media that Broad Peak was the penultimate mountain he needed to summit in his second attempt to climb all 14 peaks without oxygen.

Mr. Purja has been accused of sexual abuse by female climbers, including a former client of his guiding company. A lawyer for Mr. Purja has denied the allegations.

The company, Elite Exped, has helped to usher in a new era of commercial climbing on the world’s highest peaks. A 2019 photograph that Mr. Purja took of climbers waiting to reach Mount Everest’s summit contributed to a debate about overcrowding on the mountain.