By Ananda Teresia
JAKARTA (Reuters) -Emergency responders in Indonesia are struggling to find a Brazilian woman who fell off a cliff while hiking around the country’s second highest volcano at the weekend, officials said on Tuesday, as rescue efforts entered a fourth day.
Juliana Marins, 27, was walking with five friends on Mount Rinjani on Saturday when she slipped and fell off a cliff on the side of the 3,726-metre (12,224 feet) mountain, head of local rescuers Muhammad Hariyadi told Reuters.
Located in West Nusa Tenggara province, the active volcano is a popular tourist site in the Southeast Asian archipelago. Marins fell off a cliff on the mountain, but not into the volcano crater, Hariyadi said.
Fifty people were involved in the rescue.
“We are in the process of going down there… It is very steep so very difficult for us to reach her,” Hariyadi said, stressing that the soft sand in the area made it difficult to retrieve her using ropes, and that a helicopter was on its way to the site.
He said Marins, who was located on Saturday, was slipping further on the sandy terrain of the cliff face. She was at a depth of 150 metres when first discovered, but had slipped to 500 metres by Monday morning, he added.
As of Tuesday morning, rescuers were still struggling to get down the cliff.
“There was also thick fog on the site that made it even more difficult,” Hariyadi said.
Rescuers have not been able to confirm whether Marins is still alive. Drone footage showed that she was not moving, Hariyadi said.
Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni said in a statement that the Mount Rinjani hiking track would be closed to ease the evacuation effort and out of respect to Marins and her family.
Several tourists, including foreigners, have died in accidents while hiking the volcano over the past few years, according to local media reports, including a Malaysian tourist who also fell off a cliff last month.
(Reporting by Ananda Teresia; Editing by Gibran Peshimam and Kate Mayberry)
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