GILGIT, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least nine climbers have perished on K-2 in Pakistan in the worst day for mountaineering on the world's second-highest peak, and the toll could rise further, expedition organizers said on Sunday.
Those confirmed dead included three South Koreans, two Nepalese, along with Serbian, Norwegian, Dutch and French climbers.
Unconfirmed reports said one Pakistani had died and several foreign and local climbers were unaccounted for.
Catastrophe struck on Friday, when a chunk of ice broke off from a serac, a pillar or cuboid of ice, and tore away fixed lines from a perilous steep gully known as the Bottleneck, above 8,200 meters (26,902 ft).
Several expeditions were on the mountain, including a Korean team that was making its descent after summiting the 8,611 meter peak, in northern Pakistan near the border with China.
The Korean team lost five members, including the two Nepalese, in the ice fall.
"They were returning from the summit when an avalanche at the Bottleneck hit them," Ghulam Mohammad, owner of Blue Sky Travels and Tours, told Reuters. "Our liaison officer at the Base Camp confirmed the death of five."
Three more fatalities were confirmed by Brigadier Mohammad Akram, vice president of Pakistan's Adventure Foundation.
"We don't have names of dead climbers but it has been confirmed that one Dutch, one Norwegian and one French are in the tally of dead," Akram said.
A Serbian climber, named as Dren Mandic on mountaineering websites, fell to his death while ascending earlier on Friday and a Pakistani sherpa was also believed to have died.
The previous deadliest day in the history of K-2, was on August 13, 1995, when six people fell or disappeared during a storm, including British female climber Alison Hargreaves.
The head of Italian mountaineering group Ev-K2-CNR, Agostino Da Polenza, told SkyItalia Television that based on information he given by an Italian climber another four people were missing.
DEATH ZONE
The ice fall had left around a dozen climbers stranded at the Bottleneck, at an altitude known as the "Death Zone" because bodies begin degenerating because of lack of oxygen.
A few were either seen or reported to have made their way back to camps, still high on the mountain. The seven surviving members of the Korean team had descended to camps lower down.
"We were told that some climbers are still returning to the camps," Major Farooq Firoz, an army spokesman, said.
The sky was clear and there were no forecasts of bad weather when the accident happened, said tour operator Asghar Ali, who reported all members of his expedition were accounted for.
A Dutch expedition said on its website, www.noritk2.nl, that three of its team were descending from Camp Three, at 7,350 meters. Two of them were suffering from frostbite.
But it said there was no information about a French climber Hugues d'Aubarede, Irish climber Gerard McDonnell, and a third climber identified as Karim.
A team of climbers had begun ascending to take supplies up the mountain, while helicopters were being organized to bring injured climbers down on Monday morning.
A spotter plane has been on stand-by, waiting for clouds to clear, before flying over the flanks of K-2 to look for those still missing.
More than 70 climbers have lost their lives on K-2, a good number of them at the Bottleneck.
A steep pyramid of rock and ice at the head of a glacial valley, the renowned Italian climber Reinhold Messner called K-2 "the mountain of mountains."
Though K-2 is not the deadliest in terms of number of fatalities, statistics show chances of dying making a descent after summiting are far greater than for other peaks.
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