At least nine dead on K2, world's 2nd highest peak: tour operators

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — At least nine climbers were killed and three others are missing after an ice avalanche near the summit of K2, the world's second-highest peak after Mount Everest, Pakistani tour operators said Sunday.

Three South Koreans, two Nepalis, a Dutch, a Pakistani a Norwegian and a Serb died on the 28,251-foot (8,611-metre) peak in remote northern Pakistan, considered by most climbers to be more difficult to scale than Everest.

"I can confirm nine dead and three missing," Nazir Sabir, a celebrated Pakistani mountaineer who scaled K2 in 1981 and whose tour company organised one of the doomed expeditions, told AFP.

"It is the worst tragedy on K2 since 1986, when 12 climbers were killed due to exposure," said Sabir, who confirmed the nationalities of...