Asif Bhatti, a climber from Pakistan, has been left trapped with snow blindness after attempting the dangerous 8,126-meter Nanga Parbat mountain’s last summit push, the Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP) has revealed.
“Asif is stuck at camp 4 with snow blindness at altitude 7,500-metre to 8,000-metre. He needs help,” ACP Secretary Karrar Haidri said.
According to Haidri, a number of outfits were attempting the summit and some of their members had conveyed the message that Asif was suffering from snow blindness.
“A helicopter will be needed to pick him up but for that, he will have to come down to around 6,000-metres to 6,500-metres,” he added.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday directed the authorities concerned to immediately start a rescue operation for the Pakistani climber Asif Bhatti who got stuck on Nanga Parbat with snow blindness.
Taking notice of the appeal of Wasif, son of mountaineer Asif Bhatti, the prime minister ordered the civil and military authorities in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) to initiate a rescue operation for Asif Bhatti stranded on Nanga Parbat.
Asif, along with renowned Pakistani mountaineer Lt Col (R) Dr Jabbar Bhatti, Dr Naveed, Saad Muhammad, and Faheem Pasha, had departed for the expedition a few days earlier. “His other team members have not yet begun their final summit push,” Haidri said.
Climber Shehroze Kashif has volunteered himself for the rescue mission and humbly appealed to the concerned departments to consider arranging transportation for him.
With a death probability of 21%, Nanga Parbat continues to claim its place among the top five most dangerous mountains in the world. Till now 85 of the climbers have died while attempting it.
Pakistan rivals Nepal for the number of peaks higher than 7,000 meters. Nanga Parbat has become known as “Killer Mountain” moniker because of the high number of lives it has claimed.
????#Rescue alert at #NangaParbat ????
A #Pakistani #climber Asif Bhatti, who is also a university professor from Islamabad, is stuck on Nanga Parbat at altitude of around 7500 meters. He is suffering from snow blindness and is unable to descend on his own. A group of climbers from… pic.twitter.com/XHhH7zkSJY
— The Karakoram Club (@KarakoramClub) July 3, 2023
On Sunday, Pakistani women mountaineers Naila Kiani and Samina Baig scaled Nanga Parbat along with a group of over a dozen local and international climbers. The feat made Kiani and Baig the first Pakistani women to summit the peak.
Last month, 23 climbers from Norway, Russia, the United States, Switzerland, France, Turkiye, Mexico, Nepal and Pakistan summited Nanga Parbat.
Five of the globe’s 14 mountains above 8,000 meters are in Pakistan— including Nanga Parbat, which earned the nickname “killer mountain” after more than 30 people died trying to climb it before the first successful summit in 1953.
