The controversy is still alive. An investigation has been launched into the death of a Pakistani porter near the top of the world's most treacherous mountain, a Pakistani climber said on Saturday, after allegations that some 70 climbers eager to reach the summit had passed the mountain. man, after he was seriously injured in a fall.
Allegations surrounding the events on July 27 at K2, the world's second highest peak, eclipsed a record set by Norwegian climber Kristin Harila and her Sherpa guide Tenjin. By climbing K2 that day, they became the fastest climbers in the world, scaling the world's 14 highest mountains in 92 days. Harila denied any responsibility for the death of the keeper, Mohammed Hassan, a 27-year-old father of three who slipped and fell from a narrow path in a particularly dangerous area of K2, known as the bottleneck.
In an Instagram post on Friday, she wrote that she felt "angry at how many people have been blaming others for this tragic death" and that no one was to blame.
Harila was defending himself against the accusations of two other climbers who were on K2 that day, the Austrian Wilhelm Steindl and the German Philip Flaemig. The pair had aborted their climb due to difficult weather conditions, but said they reconstructed the events later by reviewing drone footage. The footage showed dozens of climbers passing a seriously injured Hassan instead of coming to his rescue, Steindl told The Associated Press on Saturday. He argued that the porter could have been saved if the other climbers, including Harila and his team, had given up trying to reach the top.
Steindl added that the footage shows "a man trying to rub his chest trying to keep him warm, to somehow keep him alive."
"You can see that the man is desperate. We already know that this was his friend, also a Pakistani high standard bearer," Steindl told AP. "And what you also see on the drone footage is a line of 70 climbers marching towards the top." "There is a double standard here. If I or any other Westerner had been lying there, everything possible would have been done to save them," Steindl said. "Everyone would have had to go back to bring the injured person back to the top." valley".
Steindl also said that July 27 was the only day this season where conditions were good enough for climbers to summit K2, which explains why so many climbers were eager to summit. Harila told Sky News Hassan had been hanging from a rope, head down, after he fell into the bottleneck, which he described as "probably the most dangerous part of K2."
She said that after about an hour, her team was able to get him back on the trail. At some point, she and another person from her team decided to continue to the top while another member of the team stayed with Hassan, giving him warm water and oxygen from his own mask.
Harila said that he decided to continue moving towards the top because his forward fixing team also had difficulties that he did not detail in the interview. When asked about Hassan's equipment, Harila said he was not wearing a down jacket and had no gloves, and no oxygen. “We didn't see any sign of an oxygen mask or tank,” he said. Meanwhile, an investigation has been launched into Hassan's death, said Karrar Haidri, secretary of the Pakistan Alpine Club, a sports organization that also serves as the governing body for mountaineering in Pakistan.
The investigation is being conducted by officials from the Gilgit-Baltistan region which has jurisdiction over K2, Haidri said. Anwar Syed, head of the Lela Peak Expedition, the company running Harila's expedition, said Hassan died about 150 meters (490 feet) below sea level.
He noted that several people tried to help, providing oxygen and heat, without success. Syed said that due to the dangerous conditions at the bottleneck, it would not be possible to recover Hassan's body and hand it over to the family.
He said his company gave Hassan's family money and would continue to help, but he did not elaborate. When asked about Hassan's apparent lack of equipment, Syed said the shipping company pays porters money to buy equipment, and Hassan was paid the agreed amount. Steindl's fellow climber, Flaemig, claimed in an interview with the Austrian newspaper 'Der Standard' that Hassan had no experience at high altitudes. “He wasn't properly equipped. He had no experience. He was a base camp porter and for the first time he was chosen to be a high altitude porter. He was not qualified for this,” he said.
Steindl visited Hassan's family and organized a crowdfunding campaign. After three days, donations topped 114,000 euros ($125,000) on Saturday. "I saw the suffering of the family." Steindl told the AP: "The widow told me that her husband did all this so that her children would have a chance in life, so they could go to school."
