The Korean Alpine Federation announced Thursday it was searching for three missing Korean climbers last seen heading for a summit in the Himalayas in north-central Nepal.

Korean veteran mountaineer Park Young-seok, Gang Gi-seok and Shin Dong-min were on the south face of Annapurna, aiming to push for the 8,091-meter summit on Friday.

Park and his team left their base camp on Oct. 17, aiming for the summit via a new route on the south side.

Park, who had his 49th birthday on Oct. 13, had told the base camp that they were in extreme conditions with rocks falling from the peak due to heavy snow.

He last contacted the base camp on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Korean time, and since then there has been no contact, according to the KAF.

A spokesman from the KAF said he was very concerned as it seemed there had been an accident.

The KAF has found no sign of him despite a search on the mountain by helicopter on Thursday, the official said.

“Generally in 36 hours the searching team would have expected to see him, and they did not. So we think he must have been in an accident,” the spokesman added.

Park has climbed all 14 eight-thousanders and skied to both the North and South Poles. He carved a new route to Mt. Everest in 2009. Last year, Park tried to scale Annapurna’s south face, but failed to reach the summit due to bad weather conditions.

Park said before this year’s expedition that he must reach the summit no matter what the conditions.

“I won’t just return home like last time, I will reach the summit no matter how long it will take,” he said before his departure. 

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)