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ground team began searching for Alberto Zerain Berasatei from
Spain and Mariano Galacan from Argentina but helicopters could
not join the search effort due to poor weather, said Karrar
Haidri, spokesman for the Alpine Club of Pakistan.
The two men, who were part of a 13-strong expedition that set
out last month to climb the 8,126 meter Nanga Parbat, the
world's ninth highest mountain, were last heard from on
Saturday.
The rest of their party had returned to base camp, Haidri
confirmed.
"In such weather conditions and without adequate food supply,
survival appears unlikely but there was the case of Tomaz Humar
a few years ago," Haidari said, adding that rescue officials are
doing everything possible to find the men.
Slovenian mountaineer Humar was trapped on Nanga Parbat for six
days in 2005 before army helicopters found him trapped under a
ledge at a height of nearly 6000 meters.
Pakistan rivals Nepal for the number of peaks over 7,000 meters
(23,000 feet) and is home to the world's second-highest
mountain, K2, as well as three others which are among the
world's 14 summits higher than 8,000 meters.
In 2013, gunmen dressed as police officers shot 10 foreign
mountaineers and a local guide at Nanga Parbat's 4,200-metre
base camp.
The attack, later claimed by the Taliban, resulted in a major
decrease in climbing expeditions, wrecking communities dependent
on climbing tourism for income and depriving Pakistan's economy
of much-needed dollars.
(Reporting by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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