Rescuers found two survivors from a missing canoe expedition on Friday, 20 days after the six-member Russian group failed to make a rendezvous in western China, Chinese and Russian reports said.
Russian and Chinese rescuers found Alexander Zverev, his face pale and his body covered with mud and dust, on a bank along the upper reaches of the Yurungkax River on Friday morning.
Andrei Pautov was found in the evening, the reports said.
PHOTO: EPA
Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Veronika Smolskaya confirmed Pautov's rescue, but gave no details on his condition. The man's age wasn't immediately known.
Zverev, 35, had earlier been quoted by ITAR-Tass as saying that his five traveling companions had all been killed in two separate accidents on Aug. 24 and Aug. 27, when their boats overturned.
He told Russia's Vesti television news program that he lived in a cave for 20 days, using tree branches to keep warm, ITAR-Tass said.
"Every evening I made a bed for myself from tree branches, tried not to get cold, to preserve heat to keep the body warm," he said.
Xinhua said that when Zverev was found, he was able to walk and talk clearly and was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Hotan City in Xinjiang Province.
Three other members of the expedition were found dead last week.
Medical experts who examined the bodies said they had fallen into the river and drowned, Xinhua reported on Thursday.
One member of group remains missing.
Efforts to rescue the canoeists have been hampered by the difficult terrain and dust storms, which forced a suspension of the search earlier this week.
The six Russians set out on Aug. 21 for a 12-day trip along the Yurungkax, which cuts through the rugged Kunlun Mountains before disappearing in the Taklamakan Desert.
They were reported missing after they did not turn up at a prearranged rendezvous point on Sept. 2.
Canoeing on the upper reaches of the Yurungkax is dangerous, given the elevation of 3,000m and the river's fast, rocky course, said Wang Wei of the China Association for Scientific Expedition, who canoed the Yurungkax's lower stretches in the 1990s.
"The water flows really fast and rocks in the river, which could strike the canoe at any minute, are a main threat," Wang said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS