The Accident happened on K-2 what is next?
Nepal's Seven Summit Tracks (SST), led by Chang Dawa
Sherpa has returned from the K2 base camp to Skardu, but a team of Pakistani
tour operator Jasmine Tours is searching for the missing climbers. Search and
rescue SAR is still ongoing. The bad weather in K2 has cast a shadow of
uncertainty over the future of the operation, which is being carried out with
the help of the administration and the army.
At this stage, fans around the world in general and the
Pakistani nations in particular are in a state of anxiety and countless
questions are rising in everyone's mind. So in this article, I will try to find
answers to some very important questions.
Are the missing climbers alive?
Psychologists
say that in accepting any fact, man is basically emotional, and in the beginning, he must suffer from the state of denial. And if we look further, our culture
and beliefs also keep us in a state of denial to some extent. Therefore,
according to the mind of an ordinary Pakistani, Ali Sadpara and his team are
miraculously building an ice cave in the death zone and waiting for the rescue
team. Some people have even seen Ali Sadpara in a dream. Some have
calculated from the spiritual agent that the three missing climbers are still
alive and so on.
In a similar incident, three young Pakistani climbers went missing on Azad
Kashmir's highest peak, Toshe Ri-1, in 2015 and could not be found after nine
days of searching, after which the search ended. Gone At that time, I called
Colonel Abdul Jabbar Bhatti, a Pakistani mountaineer who was leading the rescue
mission, and demanded that the death of these three of our comrades should be
announced so that at least their funeral prayers could be offered in absentia.
Make an official announcement of persuaded to be dead by talking to the family.
Colonel Sahib said that our culture and society. This is not possible because
the heirs are still hoping that they will return alive. I can't talk straight
to those relatives. It's not fair. After this explanation of Colonel Sahib, I
also did not talk about it on social media and deliberately remained silent.
But no trace of those climbers has been found to date. This is the way of
thinking of an ordinary Pakistani at that time.
On the other hand, if we look at this issue from the perspective of any novice
athlete in the tourism, adventure, and climbing community of Pakistan, when Sajid
Sadpara started descending from Camp 3 on the morning of February 6, he
would have guessed missing climbers are no longer alive. Ali Sadpara's team was
last seen in the Death Zone at 8,200 meters around the bottleneck section at 10
a.m. on February 5 at such an altitude. If they had had an accident in the
evening on their way back, they would have survived till the morning of
February 6. These are the things that mountaineers are taught in the first
lesson of basic training about the dangers of natural disasters or accidents on
the mountain. So now, even if you consider me a pessimist, I will say what I
have been hesitant to say about the climbers of our community since the morning
of February 6, and that is that of Ali Sadpara, Jan Sunori, and JP Mohir have
died in the death zone and now only the search for dead bodies continues. This
is what Sajid Sadpara had said to the media on the evening of February 6, but
people were thinking that since Sajid Sadpara is traumatized, he is making this
statement. The fact is that although Sajid is traumatized by his father's
separation, he was right in saying that there should be an effort to find dead
bodies. Remember that the blood of Ali Sadpara is running in the veins of Sajid
Sadpara. It is a different story of his determination that has become part of
the eternal history of mountaineering.
Should the K2 accident be investigated?
Wherever
there are mountaineering incidents around the world in which climbers die,
there are investigations, but they are not like criminal investigations, but
only from the angle of knowing the real reasons for the future Avoid it, because
climbers start their mountain adventure only by acknowledging the fact that
their lives can be lost in this sport, for which no tour operator or fellow
climbers can be held responsible.
Although
mountaineering is generally considered unnecessary in Pakistan and is not given
serious attention in this field, but the K2 incident has shaken even ordinary
Pakistanis from within and today Muhammad Ali Sadpara is in the prayers of
people from all walks of life. Is alive therefore, there is a need for a detailed investigation into the incident to get the public out of this state of
anxiety and turmoil. If the Gilgit-Baltistan government has taken a decision in In this regard, it will be a very welcome thing, otherwise, I request you to think
about it, because it will determine the future of the promotion of
mountaineering in Pakistan. To further explore the event, let's now take a look
at;
K2's current winter adventure timeline in a
chronological order
One a year ago today, John Sunori came on the K2 adventure of 2019-2020
season. He was accompanied by a famous Nepali climber, Mangmaji Sherpa,
a Chinese climber as a foreign member, and a young Pakistani climber, Sarbaz
Khan of Hunza. One year ago, on February 5, 2020, an article appeared in
Explorer's Web stating that John Sunori's adventures had been ended and he was
rescued by helicopter after an alleged rescue mission and left for Skardu. ۔ Meanwhile, Pakistani
mountaineer Sarbaz Khan and the rest of the team set off on foot via Concordia
to Skardu. John Snorri posted an angry post on his Instagram account which
showed that there was bitterness between Mangmaji and John Snorri.
The winter season of 2019-2020 ended without success because, in another important
adventure, the famous Polish climber Alex Tshikon could not go beyond
7000 meters. For the winter season 2020-2021, John Sunori teamed up with Ali
Sadpara and, according to the permit, signed a contract with Muhammad Ali
Sadpara and his son Sajid Ali Sadpara as High Altitude Guides to try to lead
John Snorri K2 in winter.
On
December 5, 2020, they arrived at K2 base camp and began a regular campaign. If
you look at the updates on the wall of John Sunory's Facebook page from
December 5, 2020, to January 10, 2021, you can guess how fast he completed the
rope fixing and his acclimatization rotation. Meanwhile, Nepali Sherpas come
from Nepal in 3 different teams after Christmas i.e. December 25, and started
the adventure. Because they were fully prepared they came, so their adventure
was fast. Despite suffering from some weather problems, they merge 3 teams into
one team in the best condition of all fitness to form an all Nepalese sherpa
team consisting of 10 climbers and the first weather window of the year which
was January 14-17. The announcement included a summit push. Surprisingly, John
Snoori does not announce his summit push, despite the fact that his team has
been fully accredited. Probably a factor as to why they're doing so poorly.
" It was going
on and John Sunori did not want to run his summit push along with the Nepali
team. It is possible that John Sunori, in view of the weather conditions, has
estimated that there will be no summit with Nepalis in this weather window, so
after that, he will go to the next window. Otherwise, there seems to be no other
reason why John Sunori would not attempt in that weather window because he did
not make further acclimatization rotation, and just 5 days after the Nepalese
summit, he started pushing the summit in the next weather window on January 23,
which was not successful. On the other hand, in the team of Sherpas, Mangmaji
Sherpa had announced that he would go to K2 without oxygen. However, he could
not do so. However, Nirmal Purja claimed that he had taken K2 in the winter
without oxygen. However, this claim is still considered doubtful because Nirmal
Purja did not use oxygen. An earlier claim has been disproved. However, a new
story may emerge in the coming days or months. After the Nepalese summit, the
only fascination left for John Sunori was to perform this feat with his team
without oxygen. It is very important and noteworthy here that the Nepalese also
brought with them more than 50 clients led by Chang Dawa Sherpa of SST Company.
The Nepali company announced a summit push for client climbers in the weather
window from February 3 to 5. John Snorri made the same announcement. Thus began
the SST summit push, and a few hours later, John Snoori, Ali Sadpara, and Sajid
Sadpara left with their team on the evening of February 3. In addition to the
SST climbers around the night of February 3 and 4, Tamara Longer and J.P.
Enthusiasts from all over kept checking on their mobile phones and laptops. The
summit push continued on February 4 and that evening it was reported that about
30 climbers of 3 different expeditions had reached an altitude of 7300 meters at
Camp 3 but surprisingly there were no tents set up by SST and it is impossible
for 25 climbers to stay in just 3 tents. Getting out for the final summit push
at night without a tent resting under the open sky at such a height had become
an impossible and deadly task. Meanwhile, John Snorri, Ali Sadpara, and Sajid
Sadpara were resting in John Sunori's tent and they were to leave for the
summit at 11 o'clock that night, between 4 and 5 February. Due to this
dangerous situation at 7300 meters, John Sunori sheltered Tamara Longer and JP
Mohir while the rest of the European climbers and Sherpas intended to go back
down and start the descent. The 2nd climbers began a severe third-degree
frost-bite, while Tamara Longer K2 began to descend, abandoning her dream of becoming
the first female climber to head in the winter. Accompanying him, JP Mohir
became part of John Sunori's team to move forward. All other SST, and the Nepali
Sherpas came down while the Jan Sunori team and JP Mohir started advancing towards
the summit at 11 pm. At night, John Sunori's Garmin Tracker started
malfunctioning and his location began to show sometimes 7500 meters, sometimes
7800 meters and sometimes 7300 meters. On social media, fans stopped following
the tracker and started following Sunori's management team at base camp.
Gumagu's condition continued from the morning to evening of February 5, after
which at 5 pm news came that Sajid Sadpara had returned or been sent from the
bottleneck section due to a malfunction in the oxygen regulator and his son
Snorri, Ali Sadpara, and JP Mohir. The last contact with the team was on
February 5 at 10 a.m. when they were at 8200 or 8300 meters And they were fine.
After this last contact, Sajid did not contact them again and did not receive
any good news from the three climbers. One of the descending Bulgarian climbers
slipped and fell on the descent and died. The rest of the survivors reached
base camp, while Sajid Sadpara waited all night at Camp 3 for the return of the
three climbers all night between February 5 and 6, and finally on the morning
of February 6, despair descended and evening fell reached base camp.
In the light of the above incidents, some important questions come
to mind which need to be investigated. Let's take a look at them too.
1. The Nepalese
company Seven Summit Track, brought so many clients to Pakistan, but were the
arrangements reviewed to see if a total of about 60 climbers from all the teams
on the adventure this year had to Abruzzi spur in such severe weather? But are
the arrangements complete or not? Because K2 has a maximum of 7 or 8 tents at
the two campsites, C1 and C2, where if 60 climbers climb together, it will be
impossible for them to stay, but this situation cannot be avoided. Because all
the climbers on the adventure walk according to the weather window and at the
same time have to push the summit
2. When 10
Nepalese Sherpas had returned to Nepal after the summit and SST had to get
their client climbers to climb in the next weather window and when it was
decided to push the summit in the weather window on February 3, did SST's
Sherpa team do that? Installed a new fixed-line of rope for the latest summit
push? And if so, did the Forward Sherpa team check the ropes to see if they
would be able to withstand the load of all the climbers attempting to push such
an unprecedented number of summits?
3. . That day
SST client climbers arrived at Camp 3 and there were no tents set up, so did
the Sherpas' forward team set up tents according to the number and all the
clients were accommodated? How many tents were there? And if the tents were
full but the wind blew them away, then what was the alternative to setting up
the climbers in an emergency?
4. Who is responsible for the
mismanagement of the three climbers' frost-bite due to lack of tents at Camp 3?
5. John Snorri's team had to overcrowd their tents out of
humanitarian sympathy, which prevented them from getting adequate rest for the
summit day. It is possible that the next day, due to the same restlessness and
exhaustion, they fell due to lack of focus. If so, who is responsible for this
serious omission?
6.
A colleague of Bulgarian mountaineer Atanas Skatov told Bulgarian TV in an
interview that Atanas had fallen and died due to a broken rope. If so, isn't
the SST Sherpa responsible for this omission? Those who did not install the
rope and if they did, its capacity was not at all according to the number of
clients. It must be determined.
7.
The most important question is that just as the rope to Camp 3 was damaged, so
was the fixed-line above the death zone not damaged or was deliberately damaged
so that at least one summit could be held after them this year.
K2's winter summit glory came only to the
Nepalese so that they could continue their business in Pakistan by controlling
the mountaineering industry as they are doing in Nepal. In my opinion, this possibility should not be ruled out at all, because John Sunori was already
angry with the Sherpas.
However, since one of our great climbers and not only a national
but also an international mountaineering hero has been given a stigma in this incident, now whether he is Nepali or someone else, if he is responsible for
this accident, he should be brought to the fore and If a Nepali company has
committed criminal and professional negligence, it should be banned from
operating in Pakistan in the future and disciplined. In the light of all the
above circumstances and events, as an ordinary citizen of Pakistan and a tour
operator, I demand from the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan that until this the incident is fully investigated, the K2 mountaineering should be stopped. Be
temporarily banned, and as I have stated at the beginning of this article,
criminal investigations of such incidents are not carried out but a fact
finding inquiry can be made. Therefore, such an inquiry should be initiated as
soon as possible and credible facts should be brought to light all of us
Pakistanis, including Muhammad Ali Sadpara's family, should be taken out of the
state of anxiety.
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