Pak troops save 2 Italian climbers

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Two Italian climbers trapped for 11 days on a Himalayan peak were rescued in northern Pakistan by helicopter on Thursday, the Italian embassy in Islamabad said.
Walter Nones and Simon Kehrer had been marooned on the 8,125-metre Nanga Parbat in Pakistan since their companion Karl Unterkircher died in a crevasse fall last week.
“Both the climbers have been rescued safely from the Nanga Parbat peak through a helicopter operation today,” Oddo Sergio, a spokesman for the Italian embassy, told AFP.
“They were in good health and looked well when rescued.”
Sergio said the climbers were being brought to the northern city of Gilgit and that they would hopefully come to Islamabad on Friday.
A military-linked helicopter firm, Askari Aviation, said in a statement on its website that the pair had arrived in Gilgit later on Thursday.
Nanga Parbat, the world’s ninth highest peak, is nicknamed “killer mountain” because it has claimed numerous victims, including Guenther Messner, the brother of famed mountaineer Reinhold Messner.
Unterkircher, 38, from northern Italy, died when he fell into a deep crack on the surface of a glacier.
In August 2005 Pakistani army helicopter pilots rescued Slovenian climber Tomaz Humar from a narrow, snow-covered ledge 6,310 metres up Nanga Parbat.
Separately on Thursday, officials were searching for a British climber who has been missing for the past six days on another peak in northern Pakistan.
Benjamin Cheek went missing after leaving his two companions to attempt a solo ascent up 6,300-metre Shimshal Whitehorn mountain, they said.
“I can confirm that Cheek is missing,” spokesman for the British High Commission (embassy), Aidan Liddle, told AFP. “A search is on to rescue him.”
Cheek’s tour operator, Ashraf Aman, said the rescue bid had been put back until Saturday because of storms. “We will search for him then. We do not know if he is safe or where he is on the mountain,” Aman said.