SEARCH AND RESCUE

Netflix Star, 43, Feared Dead Following Avalanche

The famed mountaineer was leading a 10-person climb when disaster struck.

Mountaineer and Netflix star Nirmal Purja is among the six people missing and feared dead as rescue operations continue in the wake of an avalanche that struck Pakistan’s Broad Peak mountain this week. The 43-year-old, whose famed climbs were documented in the 2021 documentary 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, was leading the expedition of 10 climbers when an avalanche swept through at the peak of their climb in the Karakoram range around noontime on July 30. Four bodies have been found so far, with an international operation underway to locate the remaining six. The rescue mission, led by Pakistan authorities, was briefly suspended after a bout of bad weather restricted aerial searches. In a statement, Pakistan’s governing mountaineering body, The Alpine Club of Pakistan, said it “remain[s] hopeful for the safe recovery of the missing climbers” and confirmed that searches are ongoing. Purja—whose history-making ascent of the world’s 14 highest mountains was the subject of the Netflix documentary—posted on social media before the climb. “Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down,” he wrote on X.

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Tom Disalvo

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