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Climber known for daring rescue missions dies on one of Pakistan’s tallest mountains: “A true legend”
A Pakistani climber known for taking part in high-altitude rescue missions died during a descent from one of the country’s tallest mountains, officials said Monday.
Murad Sadpara, 35, died of a wound sustained when a rock hit him on the 8,047-meter (26,400-foot) high Broad Peak in the Karakoram Range, said Karrar Haidri, the secretary of the Pakistan Alpine Club.
Haidri said Sadpara began the expedition with a Portuguese climber to scale the mountain last week, but the pair had to turn back when Sadpara’s partner fell ill amid harsh weather. He said the team was returning to base camp when the rock hit Sadpara.
Haidri said a team of rescuers was dispatched to evacuate Sadpara, but he died before medical aid could reach him. His body is being brought down from the mountain, Haidri said.
“His death is a sobering reminder of the extreme risks involved in high-altitude climbing, where the line between life and death is often perilously thin,” Haidri told AFP.
Haidri did not provide details about the Portuguese climber, saying only that she was safe.
Sadpara scaled many mountains during his life, including northern Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second-highest mountain, and the Pakistan Alpine Club called him “a true legend in the mountaineering community.”
A little more than a week before his death, Sadpara and four other teammates successfully retrieved the body of Muhammad Hassan Shigri from the extreme altitude of 8,200 meters on K2 in a mission the Alpine Club described as the first of its kind on the world’s second-highest mountain.
“He was instrumental in the recovery of Hassan Shigri’s body, showcasing his bravery and dedication,” the Pakistan Alpine Club said in a post on social media. “Please keep Murad in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.”
A year earlier, Sadpara was part of a team that retrieved the body of an Afghan climber from the mountain’s Camp 3, the first time a body was brought back from K2.
Five foreign climbers have fallen to their deaths in separate incidents on Pakistan mountains this summer climbing season.
The death comes about two weeks after two Austrian mountaineers died while attempting to summit a 8,200-foot peak in Italy’s Julian Alps. Officials said their bodies were dangling from their climbing ropes, still partially anchored to the mountainside, when they were found at an altitude of around 2,000 meters.
AFP contributed to this report.
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Head of Russia’s nuclear defense forces killed in Moscow blast triggered by device hidden in scooter, officials say
Moscow — The head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces, Lt. General Igor Kirillov, was killed along with his deputy early Tuesday in an explosion in Moscow, Russia’s Investigative Committee said.
An explosive device hidden in an electronic scooter went off outside a residential building as the two men left the structure, Agence France-Presse cites investigators as saying.
ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP via Getty Images
“Investigators, forensic experts and operational services are working at the scene,” committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement. “Investigative and search activities are being carried out to establish all the circumstances around this crime.”
ALEXANDER NEMENOV / AFP via Getty Images
The committee carries out responsible major investigations in Russia.
Kirillov was sentenced in absentia by a Ukrainian court on Dec. 16 for the use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine during Russia’s military operation in Ukraine that started in Feb. 2022.
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Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, said it had recorded more than 4,800 uses of chemical weapons on the battlefield since February 2022, particularly K-1 combat grenades.
During the almost 3-year operation, Russia has made small but steady territorial gains to the nearly one-fifth of Ukraine it already controls.
Kirillov had been in his post since 2017, AFP notes.
A powerful earthquake hit the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu Tuesday, smashing buildings in the capital, Port Vila, including one housing the embassies of the U.S. and other nations. A witness told Agence France-Presse of bodies seen in the city.
Dan McGarry, a journalist with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project based in Vanuatu, told the Reuters news agency in an interview that police said at least one person had been killed and injured people had been taken to hospital.
“It was the most violent earthquake I’ve experienced in my 21 years living in Vanuatu and in the Pacific Islands. I’ve seen a lot of large earthquakes, never one like this,” he said.
The 7.3-magnitude quake struck at a depth of 35 miles, off the coast of Efate, Vanuatu’s main island, at 12:47 p.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The ground floor of a building housing the U.S, French and other embassies had been crushed under higher floors, resident Michael Thompson told AFP by satellite phone after posting images of the destruction on social media.
“That no longer exists. It is just completely flat. The top three floors are still holding but they have dropped,” Thompson said.
“If there was anyone in there at the time, then they’re gone.”
Thompson said the ground floor housed the U.S. embassy, but that couldn’t be immediately confirmed.
A photo showed significant damage to the building:
STR / AFP via Getty Images
The United States has closed the embassy until further notice, citing “considerable damage” to the mission, the U.S. embassy in Papua New Guinea said in a message on social media. “Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this earthquake,” the embassy said.
The New Zealand High Commission, housed in the same building, suffered “significant damage,” a statement from Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ office said, adding that, “New Zealand is deeply concerned about the significant earthquake in Vanuatu, and the damage it has caused.”
Thompson, who runs a zipline adventure business in Vanuatu, said, “There’s people in the buildings in town. There were bodies there when we walked past.”
A landslide on one road had covered a bus, he said, “so there’s obviously some deaths there.”
The quake also collapsed at least two bridges, and most mobile networks were cut off, Thompson said.
“They’re just cracking on with a rescue operation. The support we need from overseas is medical evacuation and skilled rescue, (the) kind(s) of people that can operate in earthquakes,” he said.
STR / AFP via Getty Images
Video footage posted by Thompson and verified by AFP showed uniformed rescuers and emergency vehicles working on a building where an external roof had collapsed onto a number of parked cars and trucks.
The streets of the city were strewn with broken glass and other debris from damaged buildings, the footage showed.
Nibhay Nand, a Sydney-based pharmacist with businesses across the South Pacific, said he had spoken to staff in Port Vila who said most of the store there had been “destroyed” and that other buildings nearby had “collapsed.”
“We are waiting for everyone to get online to know how devastating and traumatic this will be,” Nand told AFP.
A tsunami warning was issued after the quake, with waves of up to three feet forecast for some areas of Vanuatu, but it was soon lifted by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
Earthquakes are common in Vanuatu, a low-lying archipelago of 320,000 people that straddles the seismic Ring of Fire, an arc of intense tectonic activity that stretches through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific Basin.
Vanuatu is ranked as one of the countries most susceptible to natural disasters such as earthquakes, storm damage, flooding and tsunamis, according to the annual World Risk Report.
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