Japanese mountaineer dies and another is injured while climbing a never-scaled peak in Pakistan

By MUNIR AHMED
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A tour operator and a mountaineering official say that a Japanese climber is presumed dead after he and his partner fell about 70 meters (230 feet) while climbing a never-scaled mountain in northern Pakistan. They said Wednesday that the second climber, who is also Japanese, was injured. The accident occurred late last week as the pair climbed a mountain in the Andaq Valley, part of northern Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan region which is also home to K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. One of the climbers was badly injured in the fall. Searchers later found his climbing gear near a crevasse and assumed he had fallen in. The search for the climber was called off after three days, and a mountaineering official says survival is impossible in such conditions.