Avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak kills four, including American climber

Four bodies were recovered from Broad Peak after an avalanche tore through an international summit push on Pakistan’s 8,047-meter Karakoram giant, leaving a team led by Nirmal Purja in one of the toughest rescue environments in high-altitude climbing. American climber Sarah Mallory Geis was among the dead, and by July 31 six climbers were still unaccounted for after earlier reports put the missing count at 10.

The avalanche struck on July 30, 2026, on a mountain that rises 26,401 feet and ranks as the world’s 12th-highest peak. That scale helps explain why the response quickly depended on air power: Pakistani Army helicopters were dispatched to the scene, and the search in the Karakoram was also being carried out with drones. At that altitude, every delay matters, because the terrain and elevation sharply limit how fast rescuers can reach the slide area once communication is cut off.

The Alpine Club of Pakistan said the avalanche hit the team led by Purja, the Nepal-born mountaineer known as Nimsdai. Purja’s profile made the incident resonate well beyond the Karakoram, where his name has long been tied to elite alpine expeditions. The group on Broad Peak included climbers from Nepal, Pakistan, the United States, China and Oman, a multinational roster that underscored how far the mountain’s risks travel.

The death toll had risen from three recovered bodies earlier in the search to four by July 31. News reports identified Sarah Mallory Geis among the victims, and other reports named Omani mountaineer Nadhira Alharthy. With climbers losing communication after the slide, Broad Peak again showed why even highly experienced mountaineers can be overtaken in seconds on a mountain where rescue windows are narrow and the margin for error is almost nonexistent.