Ammon News - Three Latvian climbers fell to their deaths on Mount McKinley in Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve, while a fourth team member survived and was rescued, ​a climbing organization from their home country said on Friday.

The National Park Service ‌reported that four climbers from a seven-member expedition suffered a fall on Wednesday in the vicinity of Denali Pass, located about 2,100 feet (640.1 metres) below the 20,310-foot summit of McKinley, North America's tallest peak.

The ​survivor was rescued on Thursday from a mountain basin at 17,200 feet and ​later transferred to an air ambulance for transport to a hospital, the ⁠Park Service said.

"Operations for the three remaining climbers have transitioned from a search and rescue ​mission to a recovery effort," the Park Service said in an online statement, adding the ​agency "does not release information about fatality victims until 72 hours after next-of-kin notification."

The agency gave few additional details and made no mention of the climbers' nation of origin.

The Latvian Mountaineering Association named the three deceased ​climbers as Inese Puceka, Vija Olte, and Renars Kunigs-Salaks, according to a ChatGPT Latvian-to-English translation ​of the group's statement on its website.

"This is an indescribably painful and irreversible loss for the entire ‌Latvian ⁠climbing community," the group said in its statement.

The association said a fourth climber, who also fell, Mārtiņš Bilzēns, was in critical condition.

The three remaining members of the expedition, not injured in the accident, returned safely to a camp on the mountain after tending to their fallen ​climbing partners, the Park ​Service said.

The Latvian ⁠Mountaineering Association said the three planned to descend from the 17,000-foot-level camp with the assistance of rescuers.

The mountain, a centerpiece of the surrounding ​park, is well known to locals and Alaska Natives as Denali, ​meaning "the high ⁠one" in the Athabascan indigenous language, although it was officially named in 1917 in honor of William McKinley, the 25th U.S. president, who was assassinated in 1901.

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President Barack Obama in 2015 officially ⁠renamed ​the peak Denali, noting that McKinley had never visited ​the mountain and lacked any significant historical connection to the mountain or Alaska. Last year, the Trump administration reinstated ​McKinley as the mountain's official name.

Reuters