The mountaineers climbed the chimborazo, culminating at 6,293 meters above sea level. Three others are missing.
Le Monde with AFP
At least three people have found death and three others have disappeared in an avalanche on a snowy volcano of Ecuador, the Chimborazo (Center), announced Sunday, October 24 the authorities.
A previous balance sheet of the ECU911 Integrated Security Service reported four dead and an injured person. “It is reported that there are three missing mountaineers, three dead, three wounded and seven rescuers, out of a total of 16 people,” said the firefighters of Quito in a statement.
The mountaineers who climb the chimborazo are Ecuadorians, according to the daily life of Quito El Comercio.
Avalanche is not linked to the activity of the volcano and, according to the firefighters, it is due to “climatic conditions”. “A group of people climbed the ensided chimborazo when an avalanche fell on it at 6 100 meters” above sea level, specified the ECU911 in a statement.
The Chimborazo is a snowy volcano of Ecuador culminating at 6,293 meters above sea level, about 130 km south of Quito. This is the highest peak of Ecuadorian Andes and one of the highest in the world. At its feet are the cities of Riobamba and Ambato (capitals of the provinces of Chimborazo and Tungurahua). The massif, where skiing is not practiced, attracts national and foreign mountaineers.
Temporary closure
Specialized police and soldiers in high mountain operations, as well as rescuers, traveled to the Chimborazo, where the authorities set up a unified command post to coordinate the rescue actions.
The Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment ordered the temporary closure of the Chimborazo Nature Reserve, which is always visited by tourists.
In 2003, the carcass of an Ecuadorian plane that had crushed in 1976 with 59 people on board had been found at the foot of the volcano. The device had crushed against a wall of the chimborazo and had been hidden by the snow after an avalanche until it is found by mountaineers about 700 meters from the summit.
In 2015, the remains of three mountaineers, probably foreigners, who had disappeared twenty to thirty years earlier, were also found at an altitude of 5,600 meters.
In 1994, an avalanche on the chimborazo had made ten dead, including six French and a Swiss.
The last eruption of the volcano occurred between the beginning of the V e century and the end of the VII e century, according to the Geophysical Institute of Quito. “The average interval between the eruptions is a thousand years and therefore the chimborazo is considered a potentially active volcano”.