12 CLIMBERS KILLED ON K2 IN 2009

At least nine mountaineers died near the summit of K2 in the Himalayas when a huge chunk of ice sheared off the mountain and hit them, and several more climbers were missing, Pakistani tour operators said Sunday.

Three South Koreans, two Nepalis, a Dutch, a Serb, a Norwegian and a Pakistani climber were killed on the notoriously treacherous Himalayan peak, the world's second highest mountain after Mount Everest.

"I can confirm nine dead and three missing," Nazir Sabir, a celebrated Pakistani climber and chief of Nazir Sabir Expeditions, told a foreign news agency.

"It is the worst tragedy on K2 since 1986, when 12 climbers were killed due to exposure," said Sabir, who scaled K2 in 1981 and Everest in 2000, and whose company organised one of the expeditions.

The missing were from France, Pakistan and Austria, he said.

Mohammad Akram, vice president of the company that organised another of the expeditions, told AFP the group was hit by the falling ice as they made their descent on Friday.

An air search had been called in to try to find the missing climbers, he said.

The ice apparently struck an area of the mountain known as the "Bottleneck," Akram said.

The pyramid-shaped K2, which sits on the border between Pakistan and China, is considered by mountaineers to be by far the hardest of the 14 summits over 8,000 metres to scale.