ISLAMABAD: An award-winning Russian alpinist is feared dead after falling from one of the world’s tallest mountains in Pakistan, officials said Thursday, potentially the fourth fatality in the nation’s 2023 summiting season.
Dmitry Golovchenko “suffered a likely lethal fall” from the 7,925-metre (26,000-foot) Gasherbrum IV — the world’s 17th tallest mountain — sometime last week, the Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP) said.
His partner Sergey Nilov was injured but made it back to the peak’s basecamp on Pakistan’s northeast border with China and was helicoptered out on Wednesday, the ACP said in a statement.
The pair had been “attempting a high-difficulty route”, the statement said.
ACP secretary Karrar Haidri told AFP the alarm was raised by Golovchenko’s wife, whom he was in contact with during the climb, and that he suspected the veteran mountaineer had fallen into a crevasse.
Authorities plan to launch a search effort on Friday, he added.
The Kremlin’s embassy in Islamabad confirmed Russian mountaineers “encountered certain problems” on Gasherbrum IV and said it was “in direct contact with their families” in a statement to AFP.
Golovchenko and Nilov won a prestigious “Piolets d’Or” award — described as the “Oscars of the mountains” — in 2013 for their ascent of Pakistan’s approximately 7,300-metre Muztagh Tower.
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