Nirmal Purja, star climber & elite British officer, dead on PoK peak

Nepal-born British mountaineer Nirmal ‘Nimsdai’ Purja, 43, died with nine other climbers after an avalanche struck the 8,047m Broad Peak in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) on July 30, only nine days after he became the first person to scale Gasherbrum II (8,035 metres) without supplemental oxygen. Elite Exped, the agency Purja co-founded, confirmed Saturday afternoon that all 10 members of the international team had died and there were no survivors, though authorities had not recovered all the bodies. Victims of the Karakoram tragedy included six Nepalese and one climber each from Pakistan, Oman, US and China.Purja, who died five days after his 43rd birthday, had been attempting to become the first mountaineer to climb all 14 eight-thousanders twice without supplemental oxygen. The ascent of Gasherbrum II on July 21 marked his 57th ascent of an 8,000m peak and his 29th without bottled oxygen.