Rescuers in Pakistan searching for 10 mountaineers, including the British-Nepali climber Nimal Purja, after an avalanche on one of the world’s highest mountains have recovered four bodies, according to a statement on Friday by the Pakistani Army’s communications arm.

The army did not specify the names or nationalities of those recovered in its statement, and said the operation was ongoing.

The 10 climbers had been out of communication since the avalanche on Broad Peak around midday Thursday, the Alpine Club of Pakistan said in a statement.

The army dispatched two helicopters on Friday morning for the search-and-rescue operation, according to the alpine club.

The GPS trackers of Mr. Purja and another expedition member, an experienced Pakistani alpinist named Sohail Sakhi, had been active on Friday morning, according to a Pakistani mountaineer who is a friend of Mr. Sakhi.

The mountaineer, who was not part of the expedition, requested anonymity to comment on the evolving situation.

Nimsdai Store, Mr. Purja’s mountaineering gear company, said it was “supporting the ongoing rescue efforts” and working to establish what had happened. “We ask for patience while verified information becomes available,” it said in a statement.

Mr. Purja was accompanied by an American climber identified as Mallory Geis; her climbing partner, Mr. Sakhi; an Omani identified as Nadhira Ahmed Abdullah Al Harthy; a Chinese, Wang Zhong; and five Nepali mountaineers, the club said.

“Every possible effort is being made to ensure that helicopter support and all available rescue resources are mobilized at the earliest opportunity, subject to weather and operational conditions,” the alpine club said on Thursday. It identified the Nepali climbers as Pur Bahadur Gurung, Kili Pemba Sherpa, Nima Sherpa, Nawang Thindu Sherpa and Gyalu Sherpa.

Mr. Purja’s guiding company, Elite Exped, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday. A communications officer for the Pakistani Army declined to comment.

Broad Peak is near Pakistan’s border with China in the Karakoram mountain range. It is the world’s 12th highest mountain, with a summit of 8,047 meters (26,400 feet) above sea level. It lies next to K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.

Mr. Purja, 43, is one of mountaineering’s most influential figures. After serving in the British Special Forces, he climbed all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in record time in 2019, a project that was chronicled in a 2021 Netflix documentary.

He repeated the feat in 2024, this time without supplemental oxygen, and dedicated it to two American women and their Nepali guides who had died a year earlier in an avalanche on Shishapangma, one of the 14 peaks.

On Monday, Mr. Purja wrote on social media that Broad Peak was the penultimate mountain he needed to summit in his second attempt to climb all 14 peaks without oxygen.

Mr. Purja has been accused of sexual abuse by female climbers, including a former client of Elite Exped, his guiding company. A lawyer for Mr. Purja has denied the allegations.

Elite Exped has helped to usher in a new era of commercial climbing on the world’s highest peaks. A 2019 photograph that Mr. Purja took of climbers waiting to reach Mount Everest’s summit contributed to a debate about overcrowding on the mountain.

Ms. Geis, the American mountaineer, was attempting to climb Broad Peak for the first time, according to a social media post from Moving Mountains, a Pakistani mountaineering agency. Ms. Geis and Mr. Sakhi had climbed Mera Peak, reaching the summit of 6,476 meters earlier this year, according to Ms. Geis’s Instagram profile.

Mr. Sakhi is a renowned Pakistani alpinist and high-altitude photographer from Hunza, in the mountainous region of Gilgit-Baltistan, who has climbed K2. Earlier this month, Mr. Sakhi climbed Nanga Parbat — the world’s ninth-highest mountain at 8,126 meters — in a solo, oxygen-free expedition, according to Moving Mountains.

In one of her Instagram posts from last year, Ms. Geis said about Pakistan, “This gem of a country should be at the top of any adventurer’s destination list.”