Wasfia Nazreen becomes first Bangladeshi to summit K2

Wasfia Nazreen early today (July 22, 2022) became the first person from Bangladesh to scale Pakistan's notorious K2, the world's second highest mountain, her expedition told AFP.

Wasfia is mostly known for being the only Bangladeshi and first Bangalee in the world to climb the Seven Summits -- the highest mountains of every continent.

Her expedition, sponsored by Renata Limited, consisted of some of the strongest and most renowned climbers in the world -- MingmaTenzi Sherpa, Mingma David Sherpa, and Nirmal Purja.

She began her push for the summit on Sunday. The 39-year-old reached the top of the 8,611m (28,251ft) peak early today.

Pakistan is home to five of the world's 14 mountains higher than 8,000m, and climbing them all is considered the ultimate achievement of any mountaineer.

Besides being far more technically difficult to climb than Everest, K2 has notoriously fickle weather, and has only been scaled by 425 people since 1954 -- including around 20 women.

More than 6,000 people have climbed Everest since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reached the top in 1953 -- some of them multiple times.