Islamabad - Two Italian climbers stuck on a Himalayan mountain in Pakistan were likely to be airlifted to safety around noon on Thursday, officials said.

"Weather is good, they are moving down and have descended to around 6,000 meters altitude," Sergio Oddo, the spokesman for the Italian embassy in Islamabad, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

According to Oddo, organizers of the rescue operation are waiting for helicopters and "as soon as they arrive, we are going to evacuate both climbers."

Mohammad Ilyas, a spokesman for Askari Aviation air rescue service, said two choppers had been dispatched to Fairy Meadows at the foot of 8,126-metre Nanga Parbat peak and the airlift operation would start at around noon (0600 GMT).

Inclement weather on Wednesday hindered the descent of Walter Nones and Simon Kehrer to a safe height for an airlift.

The two climbers along with another teammate, Karl Unterkirchner, were attempting a new route when bad weather left them stranded on one of the world's deadliest mountains. Unterkirchner fell to his death in a crevasse.

Separately, another Askari Aviation team is still waiting for the weather to clear up to locate a British mountaineer, Benjamin Cheek, who went missing on the White Horn peak in the Hazara region five days ago. (dpa)