First Swiss woman on Everest deplores ‘tragedy’ on K2

The K2: at 8,611 the second-highest mountain in the world. Keystone / Ho

The death of a Pakistani porter on the world's second highest mountain at the end of July “could and should have been prevented”, Swiss mountaineer Evelyne Binsack has told newspaper Blick.

Binsack was commentingExternal link on the death of Muhammad Hassan, a Pakistani man employed as a porter who died after an accident last month on the second highest mountain in the world.

Reports suggest that while Hassan lay alive on the ground, many other climbers simply passed around him on their ascent.

“On the mountain, tourists become animals,” Binsack told Blick. “There is no reason for somebody to die”.

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The problem is societal, she says: more and more people who think only of their ego and their bucket list are heading to the world’s highest peaks, which have become a “tourism Eldorado”.

Many tourists pay huge sums of money to be flown into base camps before they climb to the summit with the help of Sherpas and porters like Hassan – without whose support most of them wouldn’t get far, Binsack said.

The Swiss mountaineer, who has reached the summit of Mount Everest three times, says the “decaying values” in the climbing world are one reason she is no longer interested in taking on any more “eight-thousandersExternal link”.

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The exact circumstances of Hassan’s death are still unclear. Regional authorities in Pakistan have since opened an investigation into the death, according to Swiss public broadcaster, SRF.