Pakistani mountaineer Sajid Ali Sadpara on Tuesday confirmed the death of an amputee climber from South Korea, Kim HongBin, who met an accident while descending world’s twelfth highest peak located on Pak-China border in Karakoram range.
The 57-year-old mountaineer, who was also known as “fingerless maverick” with no fingers was said to be fell on the Chinese side after detaching from the safety rope.
Sajid Sadpara, who is the son of late mountaineer Hassan Sadpara, said that Pakistani climbers have expressed sorrow over the demise of HongBin, whose body is yet to find.
Broad Peak (8047m/26,555ft) is considered one of the ‘safer’ 8000m peaks, with the route being more straightforward with less overall objective hazard when compared to a peak such as K2.
Kim had become the first person with disability to ascend the 14 peaks of 8,000 height. Kim was leading the 14-member International Broad Peak Expedition 2021 which had climbers from Korea, the US, Belgium and Canada.
After the successful ascent, the team of climber were on their way down when the tragedy happened. According to Korean media, Kim made a call back home using his satellite phone. “It’s late at night. I stayed up all night in distress. It is very cold,” he said.
Born on Oct 7, 1964, Kim had been an passionate climber for most of his life. He had lost all his fingers due to frost bite while ascending Denali peak in USA in 1991. However, the incident that occurred when he was 27 did not deter him from climbing.
