Karl Unterkircher perishes on Nanga Parbat

Published below are some of the most significant articles which followed the chaos on Nanga Parbat yesterday after the death of Karl Unterkircher, one of the world’s foremost Himalayan mountaineers. His climbing partners Walter Nones and Simon Kehrer have been forced to continue their ascent as a descent proved impossible. The situation at present is very delicate and once again Himalayan mountaineering has to get to grips with a tragedy, with the impossibility of rescuing climbers and without receiving completely reliable information from the mountain.


Rome, 16 lug. (Apcom) – The expedition which should have resulted in the South Tyroleans Karl Unterkicher and Walter Nones from Trentino climbing the unexplored Rakhiot Face to the summit of Nanga Parbat, the 8125m high mountain in Nepal’s Karakorum, has transformed into a tragedy.

38 year old Karl Unterkicher, who in 2004 climbed both Everest and K2, fell into a crevasse at circa 7000m altitude during an attempt to reach the summit via a hitherto unclimbed wall. Unterkicher, Kehrer and Nones had reached the Himalayan mountain at the end of May with their sights set on the Rakhiot ice wall. After numerous weeks of preparation the three mountaineers had begun their ascent on Monday.

"Karl Unterkircher fell into a crevasse yesterday at circa 7000m. His two companions were unable to help him on this steep wall. Karl Unterkicher was covered by huge amounts of snow" explained Herbert Mussner, the expedition manager and press coordinator, to the magazine "Suedtirol Online". He had received this information via satellite telephone from Simon Kehrer.

Seeing that Kehrer and Nones were unable to escape from the Rakhiot Face they were forced to continue their ascent. The expedition members had planned to climb Nanga Parbat and then carry out a ski descent.

Mussner explained that at present he had no contact with Kehrer and Nones because the batteries of their satellite telephone were running out and the connection was poor.

It is extremely unlikely that Karl Unterkircher is still alive: there are no rescue teams operating on the mountain and due to the thin air helicopters cannot operate at an altitude of 7000m.

On 29 June 1970 Guenther Messner died on Nanga Parbat during at attempt to scale the mountain with his brother Reinhold.


NANGA PARBAT RESCUE EXPEDITION DEPARTS TOMORROW
With Silvio Mondinelli and Maurizio Gallo
Rome, 16 July. (Apcom) – Gnarro Mondinelli and Maurizio Gallo will depart tomorrow afternoon for Nanga Parbat to support as much as possible Karl Unterkircher’s two climbing partners, currently engaged on the extremely difficult and unclimbed Rakhiot Face on Nanga Parbat. The two are climbing without their leader who fell into a crevasse yesterday afternoon.

"We need to be there, ready for anything that might happen" explained Agostino Da Polenza, the president of the EvK2Cnr Committee.
Simon Kehrer from the South Tyrol and Walter Nones from the Trentino, two extremely strong alpinists but with less experience than Unterkircher, are currently in a very delicate situation: descent is impossible and they must reach 7200m to then find a possible line of escape. They are armed with just a satellite telephone and the batteries are running out.

Silvio Mondinelli, also known as Gnaro, is one of only six mountaineers who has climbed all 8000m peaks without the use of supplementary oxygen. He has carried out numerous resuce operations in the past.