Impossible to get to fallen tourist at Lombok sooner, says rescuer

Victim's family criticises slow rescue effort; rescuers say they were hindered by weather

- Aqil Hamzah

It took two aborted attempts in freezing temperatures before rescue worker Khafid Hasyadi climbed a 180m vertical cliff face and retrieved the body of a Brazilian tourist from a ravine on Mount Rinjani in Lombok.

It then took him and his team another five hours to come down from the mountain, putting an end to a five-day rescue operation plagued by poor visibility and rain.

Bad weather conditions were a key reason why the authorities could not dispatch a helicopter to do a search and rescue for the tourist, Ms Juliana Marins.

When Mr Khafid first embarked on the search-and-rescue effort on June 21, he fought through heavy fog and rocky terrain to climb Mount Rinjani — Indonesia's second-highest peak at 3,726m — to get to her.

He said: "This was the worst incident I have seen in my 15-year career. The fog was impenetrable and with the terrain on the cliff, it was impossible for us to fight the environment and get to her sooner."

Ms Marins, 26, was on an early morning hike with five friends on Mount Rinjani when she slipped and fell off a cliff on June 21.

She survived the initial fall, and drone footage and video clips recorded by other hikers showed that she was distressed, but alive, in a ravine at a depth of 150m.

But when rescuers descended the ravine, going twice as deep, they could not find her.