a day ago
Search for Brazilian tourist missing on active Indonesian volcano
Rescue personnel are carrying out an urgent search for a Brazilian hiker who has been missing for three days on an active volcano in Indonesia.
Juliana Marins, 26, fell near the 3,700-metre crater of Mount Rinjani, on the island of Lombok, which has claimed the lives of tourists before.
She was hiking with a group when she slipped off a cliff at about 6.30am local time on Saturday. The cliff is located outside the crater itself.
Marins was said to be at the back of the group hiking with a guide when she disappeared.
'It was really early, before sunrise, in bad visibility conditions with just a simple lantern to light up the terrain, which was difficult and slippery,' one of the hikers told the Brazilian TV network Globo.
Rescuers heard Marins's screams for help on Saturday, when she appeared to be safe but in shock. Brazilian media broadcast drone footage that initially showed her alive and moving.
However, the loose soil on the cliff face caused her to slip farther down. She was at a depth of some 150 metres when spotted, but had slipped to 500 metres by Monday morning.
Muhammad Hariyadi, part of the rescue team, said recent drone footage showed that Marins was not moving.
Marins's family said on social media that rescuers had 'advanced just 250 metres down, they had 350 metres left to reach Juliana but they retreated'.
Drone footage of Marins initially showed her moving as rescuers tried to reach her
She had been walking on a cliff near the crater
'It is very steep so very difficult for us to reach her,' Hariyadi said, adding that soft soil in the area was impeding the use of ropes and that a helicopter was en route.
As many as 50 emergency service workers have been searching for Marins. They failed to find her when they descended nearly 300 metres to where she was thought to be. In addition to the loose sand, thick fog has impeded attempts to locate her.
Mount Rinjani park remains open despite the accident. It's a popular trekking destination on the island of Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara province.
Tourists have died while hiking the peak in recent years, including a Malaysian traveller who fell off a cliff in May and a Portuguese hiker who fell to his death from the summit of the mountain in 2022.
