Islamabad: A day after making history, the youngest mountaineer of the world who scaled Nanga Parbat on Tuesday at the age of 20, Shehroze Kashif went missing on Tuesday prompting his father to appeal to Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa for initiating a rescue operation.
However, before the formal operation was launched, Shehroz and his fellow mountaineer Fazal Ali were located by the local officials on Wednesday and according to them, both the mountaineers were seen descending from camp 4 and heading towards Camp 3. They were in good health.
The two mountaineers had sumitted Nanga Parbat, the 9th highest mountain in the world at 8,126 metres, on Tuesday morning. However, the duo reportedly went missing while they were on their way back.
According to the local officials of Gilgit Baltistan, they went missing between camps 3 and 4 (7,000-8,000m) while descending from the summit. A rescue operation was launched within hours but before the operation kicked off they were spotted heading down from Camp 4 to Camp 3.
Spent night in the open
According to the officials of the GB government, Shehroze Kashif and Fazal Ali were trapped above camp 3 on Tuesday evening after summiting Nanga Parbat due to bad weather and had lost contact.
However, they were later seen on Wednesday morning by teams at basecamp descending towards Camp 3. They survived the night on 7350m on their own.
Nanga Parbat is the 9th highest peak in the world, and one of the 14 8-thousander mountains across the globe which scales up to 8,126 metres.
On way to make world record
Nanga Parbat is the eighth above-8,000 metre high peak that Kashif has summited. Earlier, he scaled Mount Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Manaslu and the Broad Peak.
The 20-year-old mountaineer aims to claim the title of the world’s youngest mountaineer to summit the 14 highest mountains.
Kashif intends to summit the five highest peaks by the end of this year. However, he needs government’s sponsorship and support.
Earlier, after the news that Shehroze Kashif had gone missing, Shehroze’s father in a passionate appeal, urged the Army Chief Gen Bajwa to move all resources to find his boy.
“Shehroze Kashif has lost contact with the track. It is a very challenging time for us,” Shehroze’s father stated.
“We were in touch with him through a tracker up to an altitude of 7350 feet. After that, there is no contact with Shehroze and his fellow mountaineer Fazal Ali,” he added.
If the rescue operation doesn’t start now when it will be launched, he asked in a broken tone.
Secretary Alpine Club of Pakistan Karrar Haidri confirmed the Nanga Parbat summit by Kashif Tuesday morning and congratulated the young mountaineer for his remarkable achievement.
Karrar also extended best wishes to the young mountaineer in his quest to become the youngest climber to summit 14 peaks above 8,000 meters.
