Events on K2, from Nicholas Rice

I've been watching the tragedy unfold on K2, searching for accurate sources and instead finding many sources and doubting a lot of them.

I finally located a fairly reliable source in the form of Nicholas Rice, a climber who was actually descending K2 as everything went wrong with the serac fall higher up at the Bottleneck.

He has a blog and has spent some time trying to find out exactly what happened by interviewing those who were there.

He writes: Below I will list the victims and what I gathered from first hand witnesses. The death toll sits at eleven now.

1. Serbian- Diran- Confirmed Dead; Fell below Bottleneck, Body Recovered to CIV by American Doctor, Eric.
2. Pakistan- Mehrban Karim- Confirmed Dead; Fell in Descent after Hugues Deceased
3. Pakistan- Jehan Baig- Confirmed Dead; Fell below Bottleneck during rescue of Diran
4. French- Hugues D’Aubarede- Confirmed Dead; Stuck above the traverse after Serac Fall cut the Fixed Lines
5. Irish- Gerard McDonell- Confirmed Dead; Refused to descend because he was helping the others that were injured
6. Korean- Park Kyeong hyo- Confirmed Dead- Serac Fall
7. Korean- Kim Hyokyeong- Confirmed Dead- Serac Fall
8. Korean- Hwang Dong Jin- Confirmed Dead- Serac Fall
9. Nepal- Pasang Bhote- Confirmed Dead- Died in Rescue of Jumich Bhote from Serac Fall
10. Nepal- Jumich Bhote - Confirmed Dead- Trapped in Bottleneck when Rope Cut by Serac Fall
11. Norway- Rolf Bae- Confirmed Dead- Fell in Descent with Serac Fall

Although I spoke with first hand witnesses regarding these names and events, there still exists a language barrier in some cases, and I can’t guarentee that all the facts are present. These are, however quite a bit more accurate than those based on hearsay. This evening, we still await the arrival of Marco, who was reportedly smiling in Camp II melting water, and resting. They sent a helicopter for him to get him from Camp II, however, turned back before reaching him because of deteriorating weather. I hope that the weather holds long enough so that he too can be evacuated by helicopter tomorrow, as the weather is forecast to be quite bad.

The Dutch team on the mountain have a website here and the Singaporean climbers are writing here.