Ten climbers die in Broad Peak avalanche; Nirmal Purja's expedition hit

An avalanche in Pakistan's Karakoram mountain range claimed the lives of ten members of an expedition on Broad Peak, including a 43-year-old climber.

The deadly avalanche hit the group on Thursday as they were ascending the 8047-meter peak. Purja's company, Elite Exped, confirmed the fatalities on Saturday. Pakistani authorities had previously reported that the bodies of three climbers from the group had been recovered.

Nirmal Purja, a mountaineer of Nepali origin with British citizenship, was leading the expedition. He gained international fame in October 2019 for scaling all 14 eight-thousanders in a record seven months, a feat documented in the Netflix production "14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible." His record was surpassed in the summer of 2023 by a joint Norwegian-Nepali team.

Broad Peak, the world's twelfth-highest mountain, is a popular destination for international climbing expeditions each year. The incident underscores the extreme dangers inherent in high-altitude mountaineering.