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Russian climber rescued in Pakistan airlifted to Moscow

He was taken to hospital for treatment

MOSCOW, August 4. /TASS/. The Russian mountaineer Alexander Gukov, who was rescued in Pakistan after a six-day ordeal, has been airlifted to Moscow aboard a Sukhoi Superjet 100 plane of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, the ministry’s press service told TASS on Saturday.

"The Russian Emergencies Ministry has completed the sanitary evacuation from Islamabad to Moscow by air of the injured Russian climber, who spent nearly a week on the slope of Latok 1 mountain in Pakistan," the spokesperson said.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ100) landed in Moscow’s Zhukovsky Airport. Then the man was taken to a Moscow hospital for treatment. His condition did not worsen during the flight.

"The Russian Emergencies Ministry’s Sukhoi Superjet 100 is equipped with cutting-edge devices and a special medical module, an artificial respirator, and cardiac monitors," he said.

Tragedy in mountains

Alexander Gukov from St. Petersburg and his climbing partner Sergei Glazunov from the Siberian city of Irkutsk got stranded on a steep slope of Latok 1 mountain. Glazunov fell to his death, while Gukov managed to cling to the wall at a height of 6,200 meters without any equipment, food or mobile communication. Most of the equipment was lost after Glazunov’s fall.

Pakistani rescuers could not pluck the stranded climber to safety for several days due to bad weather.

According to the site of Russia’s Mountaineering Federation, Gukov and Glazunov were members of the expedition that had been planning to ascend Latok 1 for shooting the documentary Impossible is not Forever.

Latok 1 is a 7,150-meter-high mountain in the Karakoram range. While raising money for their expedition, the alpine climbers wrote that the North Ridge of Latok 1 had been unclimbed earlier. In the summer of 1978, a group of American mountaineers hit a height of 7,000 meters, but were forced to descend.

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