Italian climber choppered out as survivors describe accident.
The death toll in the tragic events on K2 last weekend
appears, according to most sources, to have been eleven, though as
with most large scale mountaineering accidents, there's still an
element of confusion over the details of what happened.
The last survivor of the accident, Italian Marco Confortola, was
reportedly
airlifted from the mountain yesterday - Tuesday - and airlifted to
military hospital in Skardu. Two Dutch climbers were similarly
evacuated on Monday to the same hospital where they are being treated
for frostbite injuries.
A total 22 climbers are thought to have been high on the mountain, when a
massive chunk of ice swept down a high gully known as the Bottleneck killing some climbers and removing vital fixed ropes hampering the descent of those still above the steep gulley. Latest
estimates suggest that eleven of them perished.
As is the way with high profile mountaineering accidents, the
world's media has taken a massive interest. Google News lists 1,616
articles about the accident and followed up initial reports with
bulletins on the progress of the rescue efforts direct from
correspondents in Pakistan.
The whole thing was a thoroughly modern mountaineering tragedy in
the sense that modern communications channels and the internet meant
that just hours after the initial accident, one of the survivors was
giving his personal account of what happened and attributing
blame.
Climbers Thought Only Of Self Preservation
Dutch mountaineer Wilco Van Roojen, who was evacuated on Monday,
spoke of fixed ropes in the Bottleneck having been positioned in the
wrong places and causing serious delays.
Then when a serac collapse swept down the gulley as the faster
summiteers were descending, he reportedly says that in the aftermath,
instead of working together, climbers stranded high on the mountain
thought only of self preservation:
"Everybody was fighting for himself and I still do not understand
why everybody was leaving each other.
"People were running down but didn't know where to go, so a lot of
people were lost on the mountain on the wrong side, wrong route, and
then you have a big problem."
What Next?
Alongside some of the purely factual reporting of the accident,
it's entirely predictable that we'll also get a spate of judgemental
opinion pieces like this
feminist interpretation decrying the pointlessness of
mountaineering in general.
K2's reputation as the
most dangerous mountain in the world will grow - though
statistically both Nanga Parbat and Annapurna are actually more
hazardous. The Independent lists the probability of death on K2 as 26
per-cent, Nanga Parbat as 28 per-cent and Annapurna a whopping 40
per-cent.
Finally, though you may doubt it, there's every chance that the
events will make K2 more attractive as a goal than it was before.
Even more so if one of the survivors of the disaster produces an
'Into Thin Air' style account of the events.
According to Steve Berry of Jagged Globe, Krakauer's book
significantly increased the allure of Everest to aspiring climbers.
Perhaps fortunately though, the combination of K2's technical
difficultly and less predictable weather patterns means it's unlikely
to become a goal for commercially guided amateurs.
Meanwhile hardened mountaineers themselves will express their
sadness for those who died, pick over the reports of the events for
lessons to learn and move on to their next peak as the media
spotlight shifts elsewhere.
If you want to read more about the K2 accident, we suggest a
search on Google News - www.google.co.uk/news
