Top mountaineer Nirmal Purja confirmed dead after 11 hit by avalanche in Pakistan

Renowned Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja, a former UK Special Forces member, has died after an avalanche struck Pakistan's Broad Peak, The Guardian reports. Purja was leading an expedition of ten other climbers on the world's twelfth-highest mountain when the avalanche hit around noon on Thursday, one of eleven climbers caught in the slide. He had earned global fame for setting the record for the fastest ascent of all fourteen of the world's peaks above eight thousand meters.

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