Nirmal Purja Dies in Broad Peak Avalanche: Nepal Mourns a Mountaineering Icon

What did Elite Exped confirm about Purja's death?

Elite Exped confirmed on 1 August that Purja and other expedition members died in the avalanche. The company he co-founded announced his death on its social media accounts on Saturday. It said it had received confirmation that other members of the expedition also did not survive.

The statement named two of Purja's climbing partners among the dead: his guide Pur Bahadur Gurung "Yukta" and Nima Sherpa. Elite Exped extended condolences to their families and asked the public to respect the families' privacy. It described Purja as a courageous leader who inspired people to reject limitations.

The confirmation ended two days of uncertainty. Pakistani mountaineering authorities had said there was no communication with the group after the incident. Elite Exped also thanked the search-and-rescue teams working in hazardous conditions on the mountain.

Who died in the Broad Peak avalanche?

Six Nepali climbers died in the avalanche, and four of the team's ten members were foreign climbers and clients. Nepali outlet Ratopati, citing confirmation on Saturday, named the six Nepalis as Nirmal Purja, Pur Bahadur Gurung, Nima Sherpa, Kili Pemba Sherpa, Gyalu Sherpa and Nawang Thindu Sherpa.

The full team of 10 also included foreign climbers. The Alpine Club of Pakistan described the group as five Nepalese climbers led by Purja, Pakistani guide Sohail Sakhi, Omani climber Nadhira Al Harthy, American climber Mallory Geis, a Chinese climber, and one further foreign member. Al Harthy was the first Omani woman to summit Everest.

Three bodies have been identified as of 1 August: Pur Bahadur Gurung "Yukta," Nadhira Al Harthy and Mallory Geis. Legal identification formalities are underway, according to the Gilgit-Baltistan tourism board. The status of the remaining climbers is still being confirmed by Pakistani and Nepali authorities.

How many bodies have been recovered so far?

Reports on the number of bodies recovered have varied as the operation develops, and the figure remains fluid. The Alpine Club of Pakistan initially confirmed two deaths on Friday, while several outlets, including the BBC, reported four climbers confirmed dead early on.

CNN reported that the Pakistan Alpine Club's president, Irfan Arshad Khan, said four people had been found dead by ground teams, with the remains of three recovered and flown to a military hospital. Al Jazeera similarly reported that rescuers located four bodies and recovered three on Friday. National Geographic reported two recoveries confirmed by Friday, with seven climbers spotted by drone.

These figures differ because recovery, identification and confirmation are happening at different speeds in severe weather. This report treats the count as unresolved. The three named identifications — Gurung, Al Harthy and Geis — are consistent across CNN, Al Jazeera and National Geographic.

When and where did the avalanche strike?

The avalanche struck at around 9 a.m. local time on Thursday, 30 July, on Broad Peak's main west-facing gully. National Geographic reported that the slide swept ten climbers down the mountain by up to a vertical mile before a rescue mission was launched.

Broad Peak stands at 8,051 metres in Pakistan's Karakoram range, in the Gilgit-Baltistan region. It is the world's 12th-highest mountain and a technically demanding climb. The team was reported to have been on its way toward the summit when the avalanche released.

Tracking data added detail to the timeline. ExplorersWeb, which accessed some climbers' trackers, reported that the ascent stopped at around 9:30 a.m. Pakistan time, followed by a fall of several hundred metres. Mingma Gyabu Sherpa, a Nepali lawmaker and Purja's business partner, said Purja's tracker position shifted after the avalanche before the signal stopped.

Why is a rescue so difficult on Broad Peak?

Rescue is constrained by weather, altitude and the limits of helicopter operations in the Karakoram. Helicopters cannot land safely much above 5,000 metres in the range, which places the avalanche zone well beyond the reach of direct air evacuation.

Harsh weather hampered helicopter flights during the first day of the operation. Other expeditions had already left the mountain over concerns about recent heavy snowfall before the avalanche struck. Drones have been used to locate climbers where flights and ground teams cannot reach.

The avalanche occurred in the corridor between the higher camps, on slopes in the angle band where slab avalanches commonly release. The corridor between Camp 2 and Camp 3 runs at roughly 30 to 45 degrees, precisely the range in which slab avalanches release. Wind-loaded snow over a weak layer can fail regardless of a climber's skill, and several highly experienced high-altitude guides were on the slope when it let go.

Who was Nirmal Purja?

Nirmal Purja was a Nepal-born former British special forces soldier who became one of the most celebrated and polarising figures in modern mountaineering. He was born on 25 July 1983 in Dana village, Myagdi district, beneath Dhaulagiri at around 1,600 metres, and grew up largely in Chitwan. His father and three older brothers all served in Gurkha regiments.

He was not born into the mountains, and that distance from the traditional climbing world shaped much of what followed. His family is Magar, an ethnic group known in Nepal for Gurkha service rather than high-altitude climbing. He has said he grew up in hardship, and it was his brothers' military wages, pooled together, that sent him to an English-medium boarding school.

Purja followed the military path, serving as a British Gurkha before becoming the first Nepali accepted into the Royal Navy's Special Boat Service, one of the hardest selection courses in any military. He served roughly 16 years and became a subject-matter expert in extreme cold-weather warfare. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2018 for his military and mountaineering achievements.

His climbing began almost by accident, with a 2012 trek to Everest Base Camp that he extended into a summit push. He compressed a career that usually takes decades into a few years, climbing his first 8,000er, Dhaulagiri, in 2014 and Everest in 2016. He treated the great peaks as objectives to be taken, an approach that set him apart from an industry built on patience and deference to the mountain.

To fund his record attempt, he resigned from the SBS, gave up his military pension and sold his house in the UK. He later divided his time between Britain and Nepal and held Non-Resident Nepali status. He is survived by his wife, Suchi Purja, and their daughter, Himani.

What was Project Possible?

Project Possible was Purja's 2019 mission to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, which he finished in six months and six days. He set out to complete the peaks in seven months and beat the standing record by more than seven years.

The mountaineering establishment did not believe him. He was an unknown with no alpine pedigree, and experienced climbers he approached for advice were dismissive. He needed around half a million dollars and had no sponsor relationships to raise it, so he remortgaged his house, ran a public fundraiser and began climbing anyway. The watchmaker Bremont eventually came on as a sponsor.

The previous record, held by South Korea's Kim Chang-ho, stood at seven years, ten months and six days, set without supplemental oxygen. Poland's Jerzy Kukuczka had become the first to climb all 14, in 1987, after nearly eight years. Purja's own record was later broken on 27 July 2023 by Norway's Kristin Harila and her Nepali partner Tenjen (Lama) Sherpa, who completed the 14 in 92 days.

The record rested on sequencing rather than a new technique — helicopters between base camps, pre-positioned supplies, and an elite Nepali team moving as a unit. His 2019 schedule bordered on the unbelievable: he climbed Everest, traversed to Lhotse, then flew to Makalu and summited it, all within 48 hours. The campaign was chronicled in the 2021 Netflix documentary "14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible," which reached audiences in 191 countries.

What was Purja known for beyond the records?

Purja was known for high-altitude rescues, the first winter ascent of K2, and his advocacy for Nepali climbers. In 2019 he twice interrupted his own record attempt to help other climbers. On Annapurna, his team went back into the death zone for stranded Malaysian climber Chin Wui Kin, who was later evacuated but died of his injuries.

Weeks later, on Kanchenjunga, Purja and his teammates gave up their own oxygen at around 8,450 metres to help other climbers. "That was a suicidal attempt and probably the hardest moment," he later recalled. Those decisions cost him time and reserves on a schedule with no slack in it, and he made them anyway.

During the same expedition he took a photograph that became one of the defining mountaineering images of the decade: a long queue of climbers near Everest's summit, widely described as a "traffic jam." It ran on front pages worldwide and helped push Nepal's government to tighten climbing regulations. It was taken by a man using the same commercial machinery it appeared to critique, a contradiction his critics never let him forget.

In January 2021 he was part of a 10-member all-Nepali team that made the first winter ascent of K2, the last 8,000er never climbed in that season, and he removed his oxygen for the summit. In the final metres, climbers from competing companies stopped below the top, waited for one another, and stepped onto the summit together singing the national anthem. He used his platform afterward to campaign for recognition of Nepali climbers and for the welfare of high-altitude workers through the Nimsdai Foundation.

His career also drew controversy. Nepal's Department of Tourism investigated his company over permit and helicopter allegations, and in 2024 two mountaineers accused him of sexual harassment in a report in the New York Times, which he denied. This report does not adjudicate those matters, which remain contested or unresolved.

What was Purja known for beyond the records?

Purja was known for high-altitude rescues, the first winter ascent of K2, and his advocacy for Nepali climbers. In 2019 he twice interrupted his own record attempt to help other climbers. On Annapurna, his team went back into the death zone for stranded Malaysian climber Chin Wui Kin, who was later evacuated but died of his injuries.

Weeks later, on Kanchenjunga, Purja and his teammates gave up their own oxygen at around 8,450 metres to help other climbers. "That was a suicidal attempt and probably the hardest moment," he later recalled. Those decisions cost him time and reserves on a schedule with no slack in it, and he made them anyway.

During the same expedition he took a photograph that became one of the defining mountaineering images of the decade: a long queue of climbers near Everest's summit, widely described as a "traffic jam." It ran on front pages worldwide and helped push Nepal's government to tighten climbing regulations. It was taken by a man using the same commercial machinery it appeared to critique, a contradiction his critics never let him forget.

In January 2021 he was part of a 10-member all-Nepali team that made the first winter ascent of K2, the last 8,000er never climbed in that season, and he removed his oxygen for the summit. In the final metres, climbers from competing companies stopped below the top, waited for one another, and stepped onto the summit together singing the national anthem. He used his platform afterward to campaign for recognition of Nepali climbers and for the welfare of high-altitude workers through the Nimsdai Foundation.

His career also drew controversy. Nepal's Department of Tourism investigated his company over permit and helicopter allegations, and in 2024 two mountaineers accused him of sexual harassment in a report in the New York Times, which he denied. This report does not adjudicate those matters, which remain contested or unresolved.

How did Purja change the climbing industry?

Purja disrupted an industry in which Western operators long held the client relationships while Nepali staff carried the risk. For much of the modern era, the money did not stay in Nepal: Western companies sold expensive Everest packages and subcontracted the fixing, load-carrying and danger to Nepali staff at a fraction of the price.

The Sherpa community changed that from the inside over decades, building the expertise and eventually the companies, and the industry's centre of gravity moved from the West to Kathmandu. Purja took a different route around it entirely. He returned with global fame, British citizenship and Western sponsors, founded Elite Exped as a premium operator, and recruited elite Sherpa climbers with better pay and higher profiles.

He also picked a fight on price, arguing that if Nepali climbers do the hardest work, Nepali companies should charge what it is worth and pay accordingly. Many in the Sherpa operator community read his rise differently, seeing one man's brand built on a team's collective labour. There is a real argument on both sides, and it was never settled. It is not this publication's place to adjudicate it.

What was Purja attempting on Broad Peak?

Broad Peak was a late addition to an expedition originally planned for Gasherbrum II. Purja summited Gasherbrum II on 21 July without supplemental oxygen. He then calculated that adding Broad Peak would leave only Cho Oyu between him and becoming the first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders twice without supplemental oxygen.

He was already acclimatised, in the Karakoram, and a weather window was open. He described the added objective as an opportunity that "whispers to those already working in silence." Nine days after Gasherbrum II, he was on the slope above Camp 2.

His planned final peak, Cho Oyu, would have completed the double traverse of all 14. That plan ended on the slope between Camp 2 and Camp 3. The peaks he sought to climb twice without oxygen now stand as the last chapter of a career defined by pushing physical limits.

How has Nepal responded?

Nepali leaders and the climbing community have paid tribute to Purja and the other victims. Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah expressed grief and paid tribute to the six Nepali climbers who died, according to Ratopati.

Fellow climbers described the loss to the fraternity. Tashi Gyalzen Sherpa, who helped Purja recover bodies from Shishapangma in 2024, told the Kathmandu Post that Purja had changed the mindset of Nepal's climbing community and taught Sherpas to "climb for a purpose." He called it a major loss.

The response on the mountain crossed the industry's fault lines. Climbers from rival companies, on Broad Peak and on nearby K2, reportedly abandoned their own summit attempts and came down to help with the search. Purja's former Project Possible partner Mingma Gyabu Sherpa, whose commercial path had diverged sharply from his, was among those relaying information to the world. Whatever the arguments had been, they stopped the moment the slope let go.