- Title: Tracks to nowhere: desperate search on Pakistan's "Killer Mountain"
- Date: 10th July 2017
- Summary: BUCHAREST, ROMANIA (JULY 10, 2017) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ROMANIAN CLIMBER AND SEARCH TEAM LEADER, ALEX GAVAN, SPEAKING THROUGH SKYPE, SAYING: "So, where their last GPS point was, was exactly in the place where the avalanche debris was, you know, big big boulders of ice in a chaotic position. So, you know, for us it was very clear, very clear at that moment because as I stated the tracks were extremely clear in the snow as you can see from the photos I provided. And the fracture line was suddenly, you know, intersecting those tracks. Those tracks were not showing up at any other place after the avalanche fracture line and, more than this, their last GPS point were in the precise place where the avalanche debris was, you know, huge boulder of ice in a very, very chaotic position."
- Embargoed: 24th July 2017 17:50
- Keywords: Matiano Galvan Alex Gavan Alberto Zerain Spanish and Argentine climbers missing on Nanga Parbat avalanche search
- Location: NANGA PARBAT, NORTHERN PAKISTAN; BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
- City: NANGA PARBAT, NORTHERN PAKISTAN; BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
- Country: Pakistan
- Topics: Disaster/Accidents
- Reuters ID: LVA0086P4Y9FR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: PART QUALITY AND AUDIO AS INCOMING
Romanian climber Alex Gavan abandoned his own attempt to scale the world's ninth-tallest peak, Pakistan's Nanga Parbat, without a second thought, to launch a search for two experienced fellow climbers who had gone missing on the mountain.
Alberto Zerain from Spain and Mariano Galvan from Argentina had chosen a daring route to the 8,126 metre (26,660 foot) summit, taking the treacherous 13 km (8 mile) Mazeno Ridge, scaled successfully only once before.
But seven days after contact with the men was lost on June 24, a helicopter flight confirmed to Gavan that they must be dead.
The flight allowed Gavan to see what must have been the men's last tracks, abruptly ending, near their last known GPS coordinates, at the telltale fracture line indicating where a sheet of snow and ice had broken off in an avalanche.
Others are still searching the mountain, and the men's bodies have not been found, but Gavan told Reuters it was certain that they had been swept away and killed, and that to search any longer was pointless and irresponsible.
"Unfortunately, beyond any doubt, it seems they could have not survived the avalanche. Of course, we didn't know at the time, but they were dead from the first day, from the 24th, when we lost contact with them," he said. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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