The record-breaking mountaineer was missing in Pakistan, then the tragic confirmation
Nirmal Purja is also among the victims of the avalanche that swept away ten climbers on Broad Peak on Thursday. A disaster in which – according to the words of the Nepalese prime minister – it is feared there will be no survivors. The death of the climber, considered a true mountain legend, was announced by his own mountaineering company, Elite Expeditions: “It is with profound sadness and immense pain that we confirm that Nirmal Purja has tragically lost his life”, declared the group in a statement immediately picked up by newspapers around the world.
The death of the famous climber, also known by the name of Nims Dai, was then also confirmed by the prime minister of Nepal, the Himalayan country in whose mountains he was born 43 years ago.
“The tragic death of six Nepalese and four foreign climbers, including world record holder Nirmal Purja, in the Karakoram mountain range in Pakistan has deeply shocked us,” said Prime Minister Balendra Shah. The ten members of the expedition – of which Nirmal Purja apparently led – were men and women of different ages and nationalities, all extremely expert climbers. Among the foreign victims, there are an American, an Omani and a Chinese.
The avalanche occurred Thursday morning at high altitude, at a height between 6,500 and 7,000 meters, just as the climbers were on that side of Broad Peak: an 8,047 meter high mountain that rises in the north-east of Pakistan, a stone’s throw from the border with China. Contact with the group has since stopped. The next day, local authorities confirmed the deaths of four people, whose bodies were found by rescuers in the area of the avalanche. Nirmal Purja was still considered among the missing.
The famous mountaineer came from a military family, and had also joined the British army at a very young age. But after spending 16 years in uniform, including a dozen in the Royal Navy special forces, he decided to dedicate himself full time to mountaineering. What made him famous was the climb in 189 days of the 14 highest peaks in the world: all peaks above 8,000 meters that Nims Dai reached in 2019 in a series of expeditions that were at the center of a documentary broadcast on TV a couple of years later. His record was later surpassed by the Norwegian climber Kristin Harila and the Nepalese climber Tenjen Lama Sherpa, who in 2023 reached 14 peaks in 92 days. Meanwhile, Nirmal Purja had been among the protagonists of the first winter climb of K2 together with nine other Nepalese mountaineers. “Broad Peak, all I ask for is safe passage up and back down,” he declared shortly before his last expedition.
