Volunteers were able to rescue a French mountaineer from Nanga Parbat but called off efforts to retrieve a Polish climber ─ both of whom have been missing since Thursday ─ who has now been declared deceased, an official said Sunday.
Two Pakistan Army helicopters began an operation Saturday on the request of the Polish and French embassies to rescue the two European mountain climbers after they got stuck while trying to summit the 8,126-meter-tall Nanga Parbat, the ninth-highest peak in the world.
Karrar Haidri, a top official in the Pakistan Alpine Federation, said the four volunteer rescuers from a separate Polish expedition were airlifted to the Nanga Parbat base camp and dropped close to the two stranded climbers ─ Tomasz Mackiewicz of Poland and Elisabeth Revol of France.