When an avalanche killed climber Nirmal Purja, his friends faced the hardest mission of all

What the report says

BBC World News reports that Nepalese mountaineer Mingma Gyalje Sherpa helped lead the recovery effort after an avalanche on Broad Peak in Pakistan killed fellow climbers Nirmal Purja, known as Nims, and Kili Pemba Sherpa, among others. The article says Mingma G was on K2 nearby when the avalanche struck in late July, and that he later used drone footage and tracker data to understand what had happened before deciding to end his own expedition and focus on bringing the bodies down.

Purja and Mingma G had previously climbed together, including on K2 in 2021, and their friendship was a central part of the BBC’s account. The report also notes that Purja was a high-profile mountaineer who became widely known through the Netflix documentary 14 Peaks, while some in the climbing world admired his achievements and others criticized his approach to records and promotion. BBC says the circumstances of the avalanche are still being examined, though the Alpine Club of Pakistan has said its early view was that an ice slab collapse, rather than snowfall alone, may have triggered it.

The recovery mission was complicated by the height, remoteness and weather conditions in the Karakoram. BBC says other climbers on Broad Peak also died, including Nadhira Al Harthy and Pur Bahadur Gurung, and that teams faced difficult decisions about whether helicopters or rope systems could be used. The story underscores the risks of high-altitude climbing and the emotional burden on those left to recover the dead from dangerous terrain.