Search resumes for missing climbers after avalanche on Pakistan's Broad Peak

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Search resumes for missing climbers after avalanche on Pakistan's Broad Peak

2026-08-01 15:44 Last Updated At：15:50

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Rescuers backed by military helicopters resumed the search Saturday for at least six members of a 10-member expedition swept away by an avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak, officials said, a day after authorities recovered three of four bodies found so far.

A local police official, Tahir Khan, said the remains of Omani climber Nathira Ahmed were being flown to the capital, Islamabad, while the bodies of American climber Mallory Geis and Nepalese climber Bahadur Gurung remained at a hospital in Skardu, the main city in Pakistan’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan region.

He said the search and rescue efforts were ongoing despite fading hopes.

The team lost contact with their base camp Thursday after an avalanche struck Broad Peak as they attempted to scale the mountain, said Karrar Haidri, vice president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan on Friday.

He said there has been no contact since then and that experienced Pakistani climbers and army helicopters are taking part in the search-and-rescue operation.

According to the Alpine Club, the expedition included five Nepalese climbers, the Omani and American climbers, Pakistani climber Sohail Sakhi, a Chinese climber identified only as Wang and another foreign climber whose identity has not been released.

The expedition was led by renowned mountaineer Nirmal Purja, the Nepal-born former British Army soldier widely known as Nims Dai. He climbed the world’s 14 highest peaks in a record 189 days in 2019, an achievement featured in the Netflix documentary “14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible.” His record was broken in 2023.

Moving Mountains, a travel company based in Pakistan, announced late last month that the expedition team was on its way to the small town of Askole and wished them a safe journey climbing Broad Peak.

The expedition was Geis’ first try at an 8,000-meter peak in Pakistan, while it was expected to be the final one for Sakhi, who is a guide for the company, as well as a geographer and high-altitude photographer who has climbed some of the world’s major peaks, according to the Moving Mountains website.

Accidents are common on climbing expeditions in northern Pakistan because of avalanches, falling ice and rock, high altitude and rapidly changing weather.

Khan reported from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Russia hits Ukrainian capital with ballistic missiles and drones, killing at least 9

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched an intense barrage of ballistic missiles and drones overnight into Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding 30 civilians in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities said.

The strikes follow a major Russian attack two days earlier that killed at least 10 people and injured more than 50 others across Ukraine, as Moscow apparently looks to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Western-supplied anti-ballistic missile defenses. The relentless cycle of attacks dims the potential of reaching a diplomatic end to Russia’s more than 4-year-old invasion of its neighbor.

Russia’s defense ministry said Saturday it had launched a “massive strike” against “Ukrainian military-industrial complex facilities and logistics centers in Kyiv.”

A five-story residential building in the city's Solomianskyi District was damaged by falling debris and a fire broke out. Rescue workers evacuated 35 people from the upper floors of the building and two people died, with eight reported injured, including two children, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.

In the Darnytskyi District of Kyiv, seven people were killed and another 14 injured after the attack caused fires and damage to houses, vehicles, an administrative and non-residential building, the emergency services said.

Elsewhere, emergency workers extinguished a fire in a non-residential building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district. There was no additional information about earlier reports by the district mayor that people were trapped in another residential building.

Damage to commercial and residential buildings was reported in two other city districts.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the United States and other Western partners over Ukraine’s need for more Patriot anti-ballistic missile defense systems to counter missile attacks from Russia.

The Ukrainian leader late Friday said he spoke to U.S. Vice President JD Vance and discussed a meeting with President Donald Trump earlier this week in Washington, which Zelenskyy described as “positive and productive.”

“The Russian air strikes on our country continue and air defense, specifically interceptors for Patriot systems against ballistic missiles, remains a top priority,” Zelenskyy said Friday in a post on Telegram.

At a NATO summit in Ankara in July, Trump said the U.S. would give Ukraine a license to make Patriot systems, but he appeared to move away from that commitment on Friday during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, saying he had not yet made a final decision on the matter.

From a basement shelter where she was taking cover as a second air alarm sounded for another wave, Liudmyla Nakonechna, 64, described how she was woken by loud explosions at 1:30 a.m.

“I ran into the corridor and was standing there when the bathroom door was blown off its hinges and struck me in the leg,” said Nakonechna, whose health is poor after undergoing cancer treatment. “I heard the sound of shattering glass. My balcony was covered in glass and it was completely blown apart, while the windows in my bedroom were also blown out.”

Nakonechna had not taken cover in a shelter since Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, but the stress became too much, she said.

“It’s getting worse by the day,” Nakonechna said. “Whereas before there was an attack once every two weeks, or maybe once a week, now it happens practically every day. It is incredibly hard to bear this psychologically.”