A rescue operation has tracked down the bodies of two climbers, including one from Australia, who died while climbing the world’s second-highest peak K2.

“Bodies of the climbers have been traced at a height of around 6500 metres,” a spokesman for Alpine Club Pakistan told DPA on Wednesday.

Australian climber Matthew Eakin and Canadian Richard Cartier went missing on K2 between Camp 1 (6000 metres) and Camp 2 (6700 metres) in two separate incidents.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade official said consular assistance was being provided and extended condolences to the Australian climber’s friends and family.

Asghar Ali Porik, from the Jasmine tour operating company that arranges climbs, said a team of more than 20 porters was “assisting in a mission to retrieve bodies of the climbers”.

The 8611-metre-high K2, which has earned the nickname ‘savage mountain’ due to its tough conditions, is located in northern Pakistan near the border with China.

Hundreds of mountaineers, most of them from Europe, try to scale peaks in Pakistan every summer, but only few try during the winter months.