Illustrative photo
MANILA: Four foreign hikers missing for days in a mountainous area of the central Philippines were rescued on Saturday (March 22), local authorities said, a day after their two companions were found safe.
The six-man group, which included German, British, Russian and Canadian nationals, had set out on Wednesday for what was to be a four-hour excursion in Negros Oriental province that officials said was hit by a downpour and low visibility.
Local authorities said in a Facebook post that Philippine army personnel and volunteer rescuers discovered the last four men at 9:44am (0144 GMT) in "the vicinity of the Hydropower Plant in Silab, Amlan", an area near the province's Balinsasayao Twin Lakes Natural Park.
No other information was provided but the four were identified on Friday as Germans Aldwin Fink, 60, and Wolfgang Schlenker, 67; Russian Anton Chernov, 38; and a 50-year-old Canadian identified only as Terry.
The Amlan municipality rescue office told AFP on Saturday that the four were being brought down the mountain but could provide no other details.
Images on a local police Facebook page showed one of the hikers, his legs bloodied, talking to rescuers inside an ambulance while another lay on a stretcher wrapped in a blanket. Neither were identified.
Fellow hikers Torsten Martin Groschupp, 58, and Alexander Radvanyi, 63, were found on Friday morning.
"They are not (dehydrated), they said they were able to drink water from the lake. One of them had packed snacks," a local health officer, who asked to be identified only as Dr. Sheryl, told AFP at the time.
Police said on Friday that the weather had likely played a role in the group's becoming lost on what they said was a "difficult" trail in a mountainous area the men were tackling without a guide.
"It was rainy at the time and that led to zero visibility," said Valencia police officer Henry Japay, adding there was no cell phone reception in the area.
"There's a big possibility that they stopped and took shelter when it started raining." - AFP
