Austrian mountaineer dies in avalanche

Two other members of group injured after being caught in storm at altitude of 5,900 metres

One member of a threeman mountaineering expedition has died in an avalanche on a more than 7,000-metre high peak in northern Pakistan, officials said Saturday.

Karrar Haidri, secretary of Alpine Club of Pakistan, said Austrian mountaineer Christian Huber was killed when an avalanche hit the climbers’ tent on Friday night during a strong storm at a height of 5,900 metres on Ultar Sar Peak in the Hunza Valley. Officials said the other two mountaineers in the group, Britons Bruce Normand and Timothy Miller, suffered injuries but were safe and helicopters were being sent to rescue them.

The three-member expedition started in late May and was permitted to go till the first week of July. The team was being managed by Higher Ground Expeditions, a tour operating company in Hunza Valley.

Higher Ground employee Abdul Karim Zouqi said a rescue helicopter will pick up the two survivors once the crew gets a weather clearance to do so. He said the body of the deceased mountaineer and his gear were found and would be brought back. In January, volunteers rescued a French mountaineer stranded on a Himalayan peak but called off efforts to retrieve a Polish climber who was declared dead after a dramatic rescue effort.

Elizabeth Revol and Tomasz Mackiewicz were climbing Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest peak in the world at 8,126 metres, when they called for help.

Four volunteers from a separate Polish expedition set out to find them and managed to reach Revol, a renowned mountaineer who was suffering from frostbite on her feet and could no longer walk. Poor weather prevented the team from reaching Mackiewicz, who had developed snow blindness and altitude sickness.