Climbing
UPDATED: 4/26/19 – A Malaysian climber has been recovered alive near the summit of Mount Annapurna in Nepal, a trekking company has said, two days after he went missing.
Climber Wui Kin Chin was spotted by a search party in a helicopter and was being taken by four rescuers to the closest camp, said Mingma Sherpa, the head of Seven Summit Treks.
He said the helicopter, one of three deployed to search for him, had seen him waving his hands at the aircraft on Thursday morning.
Efforts made to reach a stranded Malaysian mountaineer on one of the world’s most difficult peaks, 26,545-foot Annapurna, in Nepal were hampered last night due to poor weather, reports Coconuts.
49-year-old Wui Kin Chin made it to the mountain’s summit along with at least 31 others who reached the top that day but failed to return to camp, one kilometer below the 8,100-meter peak. Wui is described as a relatively experienced climber who completed the Seven Summits last spring when he successfully climbed Everest. His last social media post tells his followers that he had reached Camp 3, following a nine-and-a-half-hour climb, and that heavy snow had set in.
Climb organizers on Annapurna were made aware of the situation when the man’s guide “stumbled” into the camp late Tuesday after the two became separated from the larger group. Wui was part of a team of 13 climbers that were being led by French national, Barobian Michel Christian. Peak officials report that they are aware of the man’s location.
Mingma Sherpa, chairman of the Seven Summit Treks, reported that Wui reached the top of Annapurna at 4:10 pm local time and that a helicopter search will commence today, saying a search on foot is “highly impossible.”
Annapurna is considered a technically difficult mountain, with avalanche-prone terrain. It has a higher death rate than the famed Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak.
