40 Climbers Killed in Soviet Avalanche : Pamir Range Quake Starts Snowslide; 13 Foreigners Among Dead

At least 40 mountain climbers, including 13 foreigners, have died in an avalanche set off by an earthquake in the Pamir mountains in Soviet Central Asia, Tass news agency and climbing officials said today.

Three climbers in the group survived when the avalanche Friday engulfed a base camp on Lenin Peak, a climbing coach said.

Vladimir Shatayev, a coach with the Soviet Mountain Climbing Committee, said Alexei Koren of Leningrad suffered a broken arm and an unidentified Czechoslovakian member of the group broke a leg. A third climber escaped unhurt, he said.

The two injured climbers were taken to a hospital in Osh, in the Republic of Kirghizia, he said.

Tass said the avalanche struck the base camp, known as “Frying Pan,” situated at the 15,900-foot level of Lenin Peak in the Central Asian mountain range 1,800 miles southeast of Moscow.

“There has never been such a tragedy in the history of Soviet mountain climbing,” Shatayev said in a telephone interview. “I don’t think there has ever been such an accident in the world.”

He said the base camp has been in use since the 1930s. Since 1974, he said, the base camp has been almost permanently occupied by groups of 100 or more mountain climbers.

Shatayev said 23 of the victims belonged to the Leningrad mountain-climbing team, four came from Israel, six from Czechoslovakia, two from Switzerland and one from Spain. The remainder were from other Soviet clubs.

He said that none of the bodies have been recovered but that a team of 100 rescue workers is searching for the remains of the victims. “Everything is complicated by heavy snow,” he said.

Interfax, the information service of Moscow Radio, said the climbers were preparing to climb to the top of Lenin Peak when the avalanche struck.