Islamabad, March 1 (IANS) Pakistani authorities have launched a search operation to locate two missing foreign climbers at the Nanga Parbat mountain, the media reported on Friday.

A joint rescue team of the Army Aviation and mountaineers detected the tent of the missing climbers -- Daniel Nardi from Italy and Tom Ballard from the UK -- at Camp-3 and found traces of an avalanche in the area, Dawn news reported.

The two mountaineers, who were attempting to summit the Nanga Parbat through a new route, went missing from Camp-4 at 6,300 metres above sea level on February 24.

This was the fifth attempt by Nardi to summit the Nanga Parbat and Ballard's first, whose mother had died at the mountain in 1995.

The Nanga Parbat is the ninth highest mountain in the world. It is located at an altitude of 8,126 metres in Gilgit Baltistan's Diamer district.

--IANS ksk/soni/