6 Mountaineers Killed During Blizzard on K-2

A British woman, who just days before had reached the summit of K-2, was among six climbers killed after encountering a blizzard on the world’s second-highest peak, diplomats in Islamabad said Sunday.

In London, the Foreign Office confirmed that Julie Tullis, 47, the first British woman to scale the 28,250-foot K-2, died of exhaustion Aug. 7, three days after accomplishing her feat.

Her husband, Terry Tullis, said at their home near London that news of his wife’s death was relayed to him in a telegram from a climbing companion, Kurt Diemberger, one of two survivors.

In Islamabad, Stanislaw Smolen, a Polish diplomat, said that Tullis was one of at least six climbers to die on K-2 in the last two weeks. He identified the others as Alan Rouse, a Briton, Alfred Imietzer, 43, and Hanes Wiese, 30, both from Austria, and Wojciech Wroz and Dobroslawa Wolf-Miodowicz of Poland.

Smolen said he got his information from Diemberger after contacting him and another survivor, Austrian Willi Bauer. Both men were reported hospitalized with severe frostbite in the northern Pakistani town of Skardu.

Eight climbers, Tullis, Diemberger, Bauer, Imietzer, Wiese, Rouse, Wroz and Wolf-Miodowicz were caught in a tent lashed by wind and snow during a heavy blizzard at a makeshift camp at the 26,250-foot level. They ran short of fuel and food as the storm dragged on for more than a week, Smolen said. Imietzer and Wiese died of hunger and lack of oxygen. The cause of Rouse’s death was not immediately known.

Wroz and Wolf-Miodowicz apparently fell to their deaths in an accident involving weak ropes during the descent.

Diemberger and Bauer reached a base camp where South Korean mountaineers cared for them until a Pakistani military helicopter flew them to Skardu, foreign diplomats in Islamabad said.