K2 survivor recounts fatal mistakes

By Kamran Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Lying in a hospital cot, a saline drip strapped to his arm, the leader of a Dutch team that lost three of 11 climbers who died on K2, angrily recounted how tragedy unfolded on the world's second highest peak.

"The biggest mistake we made was that we tried to make agreements," Wilco van Rooijen told Reuters, his face reddened by sun and snow burn after days on the unforgiving 8,611 metre (28,240 feet) mountain.

"Everybody had his own responsibility and then some people did not do what they promised," the 40-year-old Dutchman said, singling out another team for only bringing half the length of rope they were supposed to have.

"With such stupid things lives are endangered," Van Rooijen added, by telephone from his hospital bed in the northern Pakistani town of Skardu.

One Serbian climber and a Pakistani high altitude porter fell to their deaths on the ascent. Some teams summitted in darkness after 8.00 p.m., according to Nazir Sabir, president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan.

But calamity hit, as it so often does on K2, on the descent after summiting.

An ice wall above a steep gully known as the Bottleneck sheered off, tearing away the fixed lines the exhausted climbers were relying on to get down.

Three Korean climbers and two Nepalis in the same team were lost, and the avalanche left around a dozen other climbers stranded above the hour glass feature at some 8,200 metres, right in the so-called "Death Zone".