Record-breaking mountaineer denies climbing over dying porter on K2

An 'egotistic' mountaineer has been pictured celebrating reaching the summit of K2 just moments after climbers 'walked over a dying porter'.

Critics accused Norwegian climber Kristin Harila and her team of being 'more interested in setting records' than helping the dying Sherpa. They also revealed how Harila and her team threw a party after reaching the top of the mountain.

As Mohammad Hassan lay seriously injured, 1,300ft from the summit of K2, dozens of fellow climbers carefully edged towards him, risking their lives as they clung to the side of the narrow ledge.

They then clambered around the stricken 27-year-old as they left him to die while continuing their own personal bid for glory.

After footage of the incident emerged, Norway's Kristin Harila and her team who passed by Hassan faced claims they were more interested in securing a new world record than helping the stricken climber.

Below her Instagram post celebrating her summitting of K2, social media users slammed her, saying 'shame on you', 'where is your humanity' and calling her 'reckless'.

Yet Harila defended herself online and urged people to 'be kind'. She added: 'I hope we can learn something from this tragedy. Hassan was not properly equipped to take on an 8,000m summit.

'What happened is in no way his fault but it shows the importance of taking all of the possible precautions so that we can help ourselves and others.

She added: 'It is truly tragic what happened and I feel very strongly for the family.'

The climber clinched the record that saw her summit 14 of the world's highest peaks in just over three months despite Hassan's death.

Fellow mountaineers, reigniting fury about how Sherpas are treated as 'second-class human beings', said a Western climber would not have been left to die in the same instance.
As Hassan, a high-altitude porter and father-of-three from Pakistan, who worked for Lela Peak Expedition, lay dead after an avalanche on July 27 pushed him over a ledge, Harila, 37, and her team scaled the 28,300ft K2 mountain.

Harila, who last month scaled her 14th highest peak in just over three months, became the world's fastest climber to reach the peaks of all the world's mountains above 8,000 metres.

A mountaineer's code of ethics: What should Hassan's fellow climbers have done to help him?
The International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA) warns that all climbers practice their sport at their own risk and are responsible and accountable for their own safety.

Providing advice for mountaineers, the group - considered the international governing body of climbing and mountaineering - warns that 'all participants in mountain sports should clearly understand the risks and hazards'.

While the organisation does not explicitly state how or if the fellow climbers should have helped Hassan - especially considering they may have put themselves at risk - they are advised to be 'ready to help others in the event of an emergency or accident and also be ready to face the consequences of a tragedy'.

Kristin Harila, a Norweigian mountaineer who passed by Hassan, said she and her team had done everything they could to help him but the conditions on K2 were too dangerous.

She has since said that she and her team did everything they could to help Hassan but the conditions on K2 were too dangerous to move him.

But mountaineer Philip Flämig, an Austrian who was climbing with Wilhelm Steindl, said footage the two recorded using a drone shows a trail of climbers walking over the stricken body instead of helping Hassan.

'He is being treated by one person while everyone else is pushing towards the summit,' he told Austria's Standard newspaper, referencing the drone footage.

'The fact is that there was no organised rescue operation although there were Sherpas and mountain guides on site who could have taken action.' Harila and her team members were among those climbers, The Telegraph reported.

He called the death a 'disgrace' and said 'such a thing would be unthinkable in the Alps' - referencing the ongoing debate about how Sherpas are used in the Himalayas.

'If he had been a Westerner, he would have been rescued immediately. No one felt responsible for him,' he told the Austrian publication.

'A living human was left lying so that records could be set.'

Harila defended her actions and choices on K2 last month to The Telegraph, saying 'we did all we could for him'.

She told the publication: 'It is simply not true to say that we did nothing to help him. We tried to lift him back up for an hour and a half and my cameraman stayed on for another hour to look after him. At no point was he left alone.'

She said that given the conditions it was not likely that he could be saved as he had fallen on to what she said was 'probably the most dangerous part of the mountain where the chances of carrying someone off were limited by the narrow trail and poor snow conditions'.

The footage of the fatality last month shows people physically climbing over Hassan as he lies helpless in the deep snow.

The video then pans over to show clouds several thousand feet below them, revealing just how high they were when the footage was taken.

The air is so thin at this elevation that all people seen in the video were wearing oxygen masks.

It appears that just one person ended up helping him, an unknown rescuer who managed to keep him conscious for a while before he died of his injuries. There was no rescue operation to help the young man.