Bodies of climbers found on Pakistan mountain

Bodies of two European climbers who went missing on the Pakistani mountain Nanga Parbat were found by the rescue team. The team spotted two silhouettes near where the missing climbers were last seen, which they later concluded were the bodies of the two men.

Nanga Parbat: Two European mountain climbers who went missing on the Pakistani mountain Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth-tallest, were confirmed dead on Saturday by Italy's ambassador to Pakistan.

Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo tweeted that the search for Italian Daniele Nardi and Briton Tom Ballard ended after a rescue team confirmed that silhouettes spotted at a height of about 5,900 metres (19,356 feet) were the bodies of the two climbers missing since February 24.

Pakistan dispatched helicopters carrying four rescuers led by Spanish mountaineer Alex Txikon, as part of the search effort despite the closure of its airspace amid tensions with neighbouring India over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Txikon and his team spotted two silhouettes near where the missing climbers were last seen, which they later concluded were the bodies of the two men.

Nardi, 42, from near Rome, had attempted to scale Nanga Parbat in winter several times.

Ballard, 30, is the son of Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to scale Mount Everest alone, who herself died aged 33 descending the summit of K2.