French climber stranded on Pakistan's 'Killer Mountain' rescued, search for her partner called off

A group of Polish climbers dramatically rescued a French mountaineer stranded on Pakistan's Nanga Parbat mountain in the Himalayas. However, officials called off the search for her climbing partner, the second missing person, on Sunday, 28 January.

Elisabeth Revol and Tomasz Mackiewicz were on their way to the summit of Nanga Parbat, nicknamed "Killer Mountain", when they got stuck at an altitude of 7,400m (24,280ft) on Friday, 26 January.

The duo was subsequently located on the same day by fellow mountaineers using binoculars, with Revol seen trying to climb down while Mackiewicz crawled.

The pair, however, had to stay put for the night on the side of the mountain without a tent in frigid temperatures as well as encounter strong winds, the Channel News Asia website reported.

A team of four Polish climbers, with support from the Pakistani military, eventually launched a rescue operation on Saturday afternoon, 27 January, the BBC reported. They were flown from the base camp of K2 – the world's second-highest peak – to an area from where they could reach the stranded climbers.

Incidentally, the Polish mountaineers were trying to become the first climbers to reach K2's peak in winter.

After finding Revol, the Polish team started their descent, which took around five-and-a-half hours. The group was eventually evacuated by helicopter and transported to a nearby hospital.

The climbing team's Facebook page announced on Sunday, "Elisabeth Revol found!"

Ludovic Giambiasi, a friend of Revol's, wrote in a post on Facebook, "Elisabeth is in the hospital in Islamabad. She has severe frostbite on her hands and feet."

However, according to the BBC, Mackiewicz could not be rescued due to the fact that he had been separated from Revol, and was also suffering from frostbite and snow blindness.

"The rescue for Tomasz is unfortunately not possible," Giambiasi wrote. "Because of the weather and altitude, it would put the life of the rescuers in extreme danger.

"It's a terrible and painful decision. We are in deep sadness. All our thoughts go out to Tomasz's family and friends. We are crying."

According to Pakistani climber Karim Shah, the rescue effort was unique. The team completed the rescue and started descending in complete darkness along a treacherous route without a fixed rope.

"No one has done such a climb before," Shah said, according to the Channel News Asia website. "Most people, it takes two or three days, and they did it in eight hours in the darkness."

Nanga Parbat is the world's ninth-highest mountain at 8,125m and is called "Killer Mountain" because more than 30 mountaineers died trying to climb it before a climber successful reached the summit in 1953.