bavaria
Bad weather: search for climbers paused
From: 14:54 | Reading time: 3 minutes
Rescue teams in Ramsau, near Berchtesgaden, are looking for a missing hiker on the Hochkalter.
Source: Ramsau Mountain Rescue Service/dpa/file image
Telephone contact was cut off Saturday night and since then, relatives and rescue workers in the mountains have feared for the life of a 24-year-old. The man from Lower Saxony had slipped on the Hochkalter and was unable to go any farther in the icy wind and snowstorm. But the weather has so far prevented his rescue.
The conditions are fatal even for experienced rescuers: Persistent snowfall, high winds, avalanche risk and falling terrain made the search for a climber who had an accident on the Hochkalter on Tuesday impossible. The 24-year-old made an emergency call on Saturday after he slipped and was unable to get back. Since then, contact with him has been lost – with rescuers not knowing exactly where to look for him. After the initial attempts in the previous days, all they had to do on Tuesday was wait again.
All hope, therefore, is that the young man will be able to dig a snow cave to protect himself from the cold wind – and that the weather will allow a helicopter flight as soon as possible to locate him with a sonar device. Because the mountain rescue service can’t do anything on foot at the moment. “You can’t move safely on the ground, there’s snow on bare ice, so every step has to be well thought out and very safe,” a spokesperson said. “And then you walk five meters away and you don’t even see why it’s snowing.”
The 24-year-old from Lower Saxony set out on an alpine excursion on Saturday at Hochkalter in Ramsau, near Berchtesgaden, when it snowed. After a fall on the normal route, already difficult in the summer and with easier climbing sections, he made an emergency call at an altitude of about 2,500 meters. In it, according to the Bavarian Red Cross, to which the mountain rescue service belongs, he initially said he broke both arms and injured his head, but later claimed over the phone that he was not seriously injured. But he is on land where there is a risk of falling and it is so steep and slippery that he can barely stand.
After the emergency call, a large-scale operation began with falling snow, ice, heavy rain, wind and fog in temperatures as low as minus six degrees. Mountain rescuers searched for the caller with several helicopters and on foot. He was unable to follow instructions to climb the summit, where rescuers could have helped him more easily. “He said he can’t do it anymore because he’s too cold,” said a spokesman for the mountain rescue service. “The cold is the main problem. That’s the ultimate goal of everything, getting out of the wind.”
On Monday night, thanks to favorable weather, emergency services were able to search for the missing person for about an hour from a helicopter with binoculars. Experts evaluated footage from the search flight for half the night, but were unable to find any trace of the victim. A lot of fresh snow has fallen since Saturday, which is estimated to be up to three meters high in the ravines, making them difficult to see, the spokesman explained.
Emergency services had expected better weather for Wednesday so the search with helicopters and drones could continue. The forecast is for sunshine on Thursday. Then, the so-called Recco buoy could also be used, with which semiconductors of electronic devices such as cell phones or laptops could also be located, even if their batteries were empty. The highest hopes are being pinned on this, said the spokesman for the mountain rescue service.
Looking at the forces of nature, he added despondently: “The same operation would be over in an hour if the weather was fine.” However, this supposed security turns out to be misleading in bad weather. “So it’s a mission like 100 years ago.” And the needy on the mountain is exposed to his fate alone.