Famed British Mountain Climber Missing After Avalanche in Pakistan

Nirmal Purja was leading an expedition in Pakistan’s Karakoram Range. One American is confirmed dead.

British climber Nirmal Purja, whose record-setting climb of the world’s 14 highest peaks was the subject of a Netflix documentary, is missing along with the rest of his expedition after an avalanche struck the mountain they were climbing in Pakistan.

Nirmal Purja became a celebrity after the release of the Netflix documentary '14 Peaks.'

Rescuers have so far recovered four bodies, according to Naik Nam Karim, a local tourism minister for the region. U.S. climber Mallory Geis, an Omani national and one of the Nepal nationals accompanying Purja have been confirmed dead. In all, 10 people were on the expedition.

The mountaineers were climbing Broad Peak, the 12th-highest mountain in the world at 26,400 feet, part of the Karakoram mountain range. There has been no communication with them since the avalanche hit around midday Thursday, according to the Alpine Club of Pakistan, which is coordinating the rescue effort using helicopters.

The club “stands in solidarity with their families and the international climbing community at this difficult time,” it said.

Geis, an American travel photographer from Texas, was making her first attempt to climb the mountain, along with her Pakistani team member, according to a social-media post from Moving Mountains, an expedition company in Pakistan.

Information from the climbers’ trackers showed they stopped their ascent around 9:30 a.m. Pakistan time Thursday and then fell several hundred meters, according to information shared by the minister.

Purja, 43, who was born in Nepal, became a mountaineering celebrity in 2019 when he summited all of the world’s 14 peaks higher than 8,000 meters, or about 26,250 feet, in six months and six days. His achievement was the subject of the Netflix documentary “14 Peaks.”

He later climbed the peaks again, this time without supplementary oxygen.

In recent years Purja’s climbing prowess was shadowed by allegations of sexual misconduct from female climbers. He has denied any wrongdoing and called the allegations an attempt to defame him.

Before embarking on his mountaineering career, Purja served in Britain’s famed Gurkha army unit, which is overwhelmingly recruited from people of Nepal’s hill communities. He went on to join the British Army’s special forces.

Purja’s business partner, Mingma David Sherpa, said that a Garmin satellite device that was with the team was still showing signs of movement on Friday, sparking hope that at least some members of the team could still be alive.

Write to Krishna Pokharel at krishna.pokharel@wsj.com