Pakistani rescuers spot 2 Italian climbers on Nanga Parbat; third climber feared dead

Sat, Jul 19 03:19 PM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) _ Pakistani rescuers in a helicopter spotted two Italian mountaineers on one of the world's deadliest peaks, where a third Italian climber is believed to have died this week, a tour operator said. Rashid Ahmad, a spokesman for the tour company that helped organize the expedition, said the two climbers had been stranded on Nanga Parbat mountain in northern Pakistan since July 16, when their colleague, Karl Unterkircher, plunged into a crevasse.

He said the climbers, Simon Kehrer and Walter Nones, were alive and rescuers in an army helicopter Saturday dropped food and radio sets for them at an altitude of about 19,700 feet (6,000 meters). "The weather was better today, and the rescuers have spotted them," he said.

Ahmad said the rescuers would use the helicopter to bring the climbers back to their base camp where two Italian experts had arrived and were monitoring the rescue operation. Efforts would also be made to find Unterkircher's body, but "it is highly unlikely that any such attempt will succeed," he said.

Unterkircher, 37, was climbing a new route up Nanga Parbat on Wednesday when he suffered his fall. Unterkircher's manager, Herbert Mussner, wrote Thursday on the climber's Web site that there was no more hope for his survival and "the tragedy is now a sad reality.

" Nanga Parbat is the world's ninth-highest peak, and in the Urdu-language it means "Naked Mountain." It is also known as "Killer Mountain" because many climbers have died while trying scale it.

Unterkircher clocked a world record for the fastest ascent, in 63 days, of Mount Everest and K2 without oxygen in 2004, and two years later also conquered the 20,500-foot (6,240-meter) peak of Mount Genyen in China.

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