Islamabad, Jul 26 (PTI): The bodies of three climbers, including Pakistan’s leading mountaineer Muhammad Ali Sadpara, were found on Monday, more than five months after they went missing while attempting to scale K2, the world's second-highest peak.

Sadpara, along with Iceland's John Snorri and Chile's Juan Pablo Mohr, had tried to scale K2 peak in winter from a different route when they went missing on February 5.

Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP) Secretary Karrar Haideri in a statement confirmed that the bodies of the three climbers were found by the team of Madison Mountaineering K2 Expedition 2021 around 11 am on Monday and arrangements were being made to bring them down.

Mushtaq Mett, the base camp manager of Madison Mountaineering K2 Expedition 2021, told the media that the first body of Sadpara was found 400 metres above Camp 4 on K2 while the bodies of the other two climbers were found 300 and 100-metre away.

He said it was "very difficult" to remove the bodies due to the high altitude but the Army Aviation was helping to bring them down.

Haideri said Snorri's body would be shifted to Iceland at the request of his wife, Lina. Mohr's sister and mother had also decided previously that his body would be brought back to Chile.

Earlier, Gilgit-Baltistan Information Minister Fatahullah Khan told Geo News, that the bodies were found by an expedition led by Sadpara's son Sajid Sadpara, who was accompanied by Canadian filmmaker Elia Saikaly and Pasang Kaji Sherpa.

Sajid had been informed about the discovery of the bodies and he will be guided by the rope-fixing team to his father's body tomorrow morning.

Separately, the minister told the Dawn online that all the bodies were spotted 400 metres away from the bottleneck spot at K2.

The three climbers went missing while attempting to climb K2, which is the world's second-highest peak with 8,611 metres height but considered as the most difficult to climb.

After several days of search involving climbers and army aviation helicopters, the search was abandoned on February 18 when the three were declared as dead.

Sadpara was the only Pakistani mountaineer to have summited eight of the 14 highest peaks in the world above 8,000 metres.

Last winter, mountaineers Atanas Skatov and Sergi Mingote Moreno lost their lives while attempting to scale K2 during winter. PTI SH/CORR MRJ MRJ

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