Pakistani rescuers on Thursday plucked two Italian climbers from a Himalayan mountain where their expert team-mate fell to his death in a crevasse last week, officials said. A helicopter ferried Simon Kehrer and Walter Nones from the 8,126-metre Nanga Parbat Mountain to the base camp near the Fairy Meadows, a small picturesque plain at the foot of the peak also dubbed as the "Killer Mountain."
"Our rescue mission is complete and they (Kehrer and Nones) are safely on ground," Muhammad Ilyas, a spokesman for the military-run Askari Aviation Air Rescue Service, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. The rescue operation, which started at midday, was completed at around 1:30 pm local time (0730 GMT). The Ecureuil helicopter from the Pakistan army's aviation wing first picked up Kehrer and after dropping him at the base camp went for Nones.
Both mountaineers were apparently in good health, however, they will undergo a medical check-up in the town of Gilgit before their departure for Islamabad, most probably on Friday, Ilyas said. Inclement weather on Wednesday had hindered the descent of the Italian climbers to a safe height for an airlift.
Last week, they had informed the organisers of the climb that the third member of the expedition, celebrated mountaineer Karl Unterkirchner, fell to his death in a ravine after heavy rain opened up several crevasses.
Unterkircher, who was the world record holder for the fastest ascents of Mount Everest and K2, along with Kehrer and Nones was attempting a new route on Nanga Parbat, or the Naked Mountain. Another Askari Aviation team was waiting for the weather to clear up to locate a British mountaineer, Benjamin Cheek, who went missing on the White Horn peak in the Hazara region five days ago.