Photo/Illutration Kazuya Hiraide, left, and Kenro Nakajima pose at the Aconcagua base camp in Argentina in January 2019. (Motoki Kaneko)

A Japanese equipment supplier on Aug. 22 concluded that two representatives of the company died after slipping and falling for more than a kilometer on K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.

Ishii Sports expressed “condolences” to the families of Kazuya Hiraide, 45, and Kenro Nakajima, 39, two of Japan’s most accomplished mountaineers.

According to the company, the two were climbing an unexplored route on the west face of K2, an 8,611-meter-high peak in the Karakoram Range in Pakistan on July 27. They had passed the 7,500-meter elevation point.

At 7 a.m. that day, “a film crew visually confirmed that the two had slipped on ice,” the company said.

The Japanese headquarters of Ishii Sports received a report that Hiraide and Nakajima fell “more than 1,000 meters.” Their bodies were “visible from an advanced base camp but they were not moving,” the company said.

The captain of another climbing team on K2 checked the situation from a helicopter and reported that the two Japanese “were connected by a rope about 6,300 meters up the mountain.”

“I am not able to confirm whether they are alive or dead,” the captain was quoted as saying.

No helicopter could land on the site near the two climbers, and it was impossible to approach from the ground.

The rescue operation was abandoned on July 30.

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