Four bodies located after 10 climbers go missing on Pakistani mountain

The Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP) maintained a public hope for the safe recovery of 10 missing mountaineers throughout Friday, July 31, 2026. However, drone footage and reports from the Gilgit-Baltistan regional government revealed a grimmer reality: multiple bodies had been located in the search area of Broad Peak.

Pakistani search crews located four bodies on Friday after an avalanche struck a multinational expedition around midday on Thursday. While some officials reported that three of these individuals — U.S. Citizen Sarah Mallory, Nadhira Ahmed Abdullah Al Harthy from Oman, and Nepali citizen Pur Bahadur Gurung — had been recovered, other Pakistani security sources stated the four located bodies had not yet been recovered or identified. The remaining six climbers remain missing in a region described by Sajid Hussain, deputy director of the tourism department in Gilgit-Baltistan, as remote and difficult.

Related YouTube video

The expedition was led by Nirmal Purja, 43, a record-setting Nepali climber and former British army soldier known as Nims Dai. Purja gained international prominence through the 2021 Netflix documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, which chronicled his 2019 ascent of the world's 14 highest mountains in six months and six days. He had previously climbed Annapurna on April 23, 2019, before pursuing other 8,000ers.

Chhang Dawa Sherpa, a board director at Seven Summit Treks, told Reuters that the team's last tracked location was at 6,600 metres (21,653 ft) when they fell down straight from there following the suspected avalanche. The team, which includes professional guides, has been completely out of communication since the event.

Expedition Composition and Status

• Nepal: Six climbers, including leader Nirmal Purja and Pur Bahadur Gurung (reported recovered).
• United States: Sarah Mallory (reported recovered), 39, from San Antonio.
• Oman: Nadhira Ahmed Abdullah Al Harthy (reported recovered).
• China: One climber identified only as Wang.
• Pakistan: Sohail Sakhi, a guide, geographer, and photographer for Moving Mountains.
• Other: One additional foreign climber of undisclosed nationality.

The disaster has triggered a coordinated diplomatic response. The Nepalese Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that six of the missing are Nepalis and stated the country has received assurances from Pakistan that all available resources will be mobilized. In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said authorities were urgently verifying the situation and offered help based on Pakistan's requirements.

Two Pakistan Army Aviation rescue helicopters were dispatched, but adverse weather conditions continued to obstruct flights throughout Friday. The difficulty of the terrain on Broad Peak, the world's 12th-highest mountain at 8,051 metres (26,414 feet), makes ground rescue equally perilous.

For the families and partners of the missing, the wait is fraught with tension. Mingma David Sherpa, a business partner of Purja, reported he was traveling to Pakistan on Friday after receiving the news.

Broad Peak is considered one of the most challenging climbs in Pakistan, a country that hosts five of the world's 14 peaks above 8,000 metres. According to climbing experts, only slightly more than three dozen people have ever climbed all 14 of these peaks.

Regional police announced that the rescue operation was suspended on Friday night due to the weather. Search efforts are scheduled to resume on Saturday.

Search Dynamics and Recovery Efforts

The timeline of the disaster began around midday on Thursday, when the avalanche struck. According to reports from the Associated Press and Reuters, efforts continued throughout Friday to retrieve the four located bodies, though Pakistani security sources noted that they had not yet been recovered from the mountain.

The scale of the loss is highlighted by the professional composition of the team. Seven Summit Treks, as reported by Reuters, had three sherpa guides among the 10 missing climbers.

For some members of the team, this ascent was a personal milestone. Moving Mountains, the Pakistan-based travel company that announced the team's journey to Askole, stated that the climb was expected to be the final 8,000-metre peak for Sohail Sakhi. Conversely, for Sarah Mallory, it was her first attempt at such a peak in Pakistan. Mallory had previously shared on social media that she was closing her Pilates studio in San Antonio to take a giant leap of faith into the unknown.

The recovery of the remaining six climbers, including Nirmal Purja, depends on a break in the adverse weather that hampered flights on Friday. With regional police having suspended operations on Friday night, the next step is the resumption of aerial and ground searches on Saturday.