In the harsh, glaciated terrain of northern Pakistan’s Karakoram Range, rescue operations have restarted for seven climbers missing following a devastating avalanche that hit an international expedition on Broad Peak, one of the world’s highest 8,000-metre mountains. As of Saturday, three bodies have been recovered from the avalanche site, with more suspected visible in aerial drone footage. The disaster unfolded on Thursday, when the 10-member expedition, led by acclaimed British-Nepali climber Nirmal Purja, was ascending to the summit of the 8,047-metre peak at roughly 6,600 metres above sea level. Contact with the full team was lost immediately after the avalanche struck, and Purja is among the seven still unaccounted for. The three remains recovered so far, airlifted by military helicopter for formal identification, include an American woman, an Omani woman, and a Nepali man, per a statement released late Friday by the regional Government of Gilgit-Baltistan. Severe, unpredictable high-altitude weather forced rescue teams to suspend search efforts on Friday, but operations resumed Saturday for a second consecutive day of searching. High-altitude porters, local specialized rescuers, and Pakistani army personnel are leading the operation, supported by military helicopters that have been scouring the avalanche-prone slope. Rescue teams stayed overnight at Broad Peak’s base camp to maintain progress on the mission, and officials confirmed that drone imagery has already detected additional suspected bodies on the mountainside. “The rescue operation is being conducted under extremely challenging terrain and high-altitude weather conditions by the Pakistani army in coordination with local high-altitude climbers and rescuers,” the regional government statement noted. According to data from the climbers’ personal tracking devices, the force of the avalanche swept the missing climbers hundreds of metres down the slope, explained Naila Kiani of Pakistan’s Alpine Club in an interview with French outlet Le Monde. The expedition included 10 members from five countries: Purja himself, five Nepali climbers, one Pakistani, one Omani, one American, and one climber from China. The team made their last confirmed contact with outside parties on Thursday morning, and news of the avalanche began to circulate later that same day. For 43-year-old Purja, the expedition was part of a historic climbing quest: he had announced publicly on social media platform X earlier this week that he was on the cusp of becoming the first person to summit all 14 of the world’s 8,000-metre “super peaks” twice without using supplemental oxygen. “Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down,” he wrote in his final post before the avalanche. Before becoming a full-time professional mountaineer and expedition guide, Purja served 10 years in the British military, including service with the Brigade of Gurkhas and the Royal Marines’ Special Boat Service. Since turning to professional climbing, he has broken dozens of mountaineering records, most famously his 2019 expedition that saw him summit all 14 8,000-metre peaks in just six months and six days – a feat that set a new world record at the time. Broad Peak, first successfully summited by an Austrian expedition in 1957, ranks as the 12th highest mountain on Earth. It is widely regarded by the climbing community as one of the most technically challenging and dangerous of all 8,000-metre ascents, prone to sudden avalanches and unpredictable severe weather.