S. Korean climber Park Young-seok feared missing in Himalayas

The Korean Alpine Federation announced Thursday it was searching for three missing Korean climbers last seen heading for a summit in the Himalayas in north-central Nepal.

Korean veteran mountaineer Park Young-seok, Gang Gi-seok and Shin Dong-min were on the south face of Annapurna, aiming to push for the 8,091-meter summit on Friday.

Park and his team left their base camp on Oct. 17, aiming for the summit via a new route on the south side.

Park had told the base camp that they were in extreme conditions with rocks falling from the peak due to heavy snow.

He last contacted the base camp on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Korean time, and since then there has been no contact, according to the KAF.

A spokesman from the KAF said he was very concerned as it seemed there had been an accident.

The KAF has found no sign of him despite a search on the mountain by helicopter on Thursday, the official said.

“Generally in 36 hours the searching team would have expected to see him, and they did not. So we think he must have been in an accident,” the spokesman added.

Park has climbed all 14 eight-thousanders and skied to both the North and South Poles. He carved a new route to Mt. Everest in 2009. Last year, Park tried to scale Annapurna’s south face, but failed to reach the summit due to bad weather conditions.

Park said before this year’s expedition that he must reach the summit no matter what the conditions.

“I won’t just return home like last time, I will reach the summit no matter how long it will take,” he said before his departure. 

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)

This file photo shows Park Young-seok who has apparently gone missing during his climb of Annapurna in the Himalayas. (Yonhap)

"At the base camp, we have a lot of amateur climbers, such as television crew, and we have to search with workers from Katmandu," the KAF official said. "Sherpas will be part of the search mission."

Annapurna is one of the world's 14 highest peaks, which are collectively called "eight-thousanders," since each is at least 8,000 meters above sea level.

Park, 47, has already scaled Annapurna and returned this year to try a different route on the southern side of the mountain.

Park is the first of four South Koreans to have climbed all 14 eight-thousanders. In 2005, he became the first in the world to complete the true Adventurers' Grand Slam, which entails reaching the North Pole and the South Pole, and scaling the 14 highest peaks.