RT Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Two Italian mountaineers stranded on one of the world’s deadliest peaks were rescued on Thursday, the Pakistani army said. The climbers — Simon Kehrer and Walter Nones — had been stranded on Nanga Parbat, also known as Killer Mountain, since July 15 when their colleague, Karl Unterkircher, fell into a crevasse and died.
Army pilot Lieutenant Colonel Moin Uddin told newsmen shortly after he airlifted the pair in his helicopter to the northern town of Gilgit the weather had been bad but “we have successfully rescued them after they descended about 19,000 feet.”
The pilot said the climbers would be sent to Islamabad today (Friday). Nanga Parbat is the world’s ninth-highest peak. Its name in in the Urdu language means Naked Mountain. The 26,660 feet (8,126 meters) high peak at the western end of the Himalayas was first conquered by German Buhl, of Germany, in 1953 after 31 people died attempting it.
Since then more have died on its slopes and fewer people try to climb it because it is regarded as technically one of the most difficult mountains to climb.