Bodies of renowned Nepali climber Nirmal Purja and others recovered from Broad Peak

The bodies of four more climbers, including renowned Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja, have been recovered from the Karakoram mountain range, three days after they went missing following an avalanche.

Purja, 43, who led a 10-member multinational expedition, was confirmed dead by his company Elite Expeditions on Saturday . The group was struck by an avalanche on Thursday near the summit of Broad Peak, the world's 12th highest mountain at 8,047 metres .

Rescuers identified Purja's body at an altitude of approximately 5,700 metres, along with three other unconfirmed bodies . Earlier, Pakistani officials had recovered the bodies of American climber Mallory Geis, Omani Nadhira Ahmed Abdullah Al Harthy, and Nepali climber Pur Bahadur Gurung .

Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah expressed shock over the tragedy, which claimed the lives of six Nepali and four other foreign climbers .

Purja, a former Gurkha and British special forces soldier, was known for climbing all 14 peaks above 8,000 metres in just six months in 2019, a record chronicled in the Netflix documentary '14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible' .

In his final social media post before the expedition, Purja wrote: "Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down. I take zero mountains for granted" .

Broad Peak, located in the Karakoram range on the border of Pakistan and China, is known for its unusually long summit ridge extending nearly 2 kilometres . As of March 2012, there had been 404 successful ascents and 21 fatalities on the peak .