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Recent cases of missing persons |
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LAST NEWS UPDATE: Wednesday, June 11, 2011
Missing Japanese found; telling her amazing tale!
KATHMANDU, June 11: Before she set out for a trek in Rasuwa district last month, Makiko Iwafuchi was advised by friends in Kathmandu to take along a guide. But the 49-year-old from Chiba prefecture, Japan, has traveled across the world for 15 years now, and mostly alone. She ignored the advice, only to soon regret doing so. This is the third time Iwafuchi has visited Nepal. In 1996, she trekked to the Annapurna Base Camp and through Langtang region. Three years ago, she trekked along the Annapurna circuit, and also to Everest Base Camp and Gokyo. She did it all alone, and was convinced that only a novice could lose way along Nepal´s trekking trails.
She was no novice! Lost! On May 25, Iwafuchi arrived at Gosainkunda and checked in to the Hotel Peaceful Lake.
That afternoon, she left for a stroll and couldn´t find her way back through the maze of trails.
For the two weeks that followed, she fought loneliness, fear, hunger, thirst, rain, cold, insect-bites, and blisters
while a police team mobilized by Deputy Superintendent Om Bahadur Rana searched for her without success. "When I left the hotel, I just wanted to walk for an hour as afternoon exercise.
But I got curious to go farther. It was a mistake," said the former jewelry retailer. After being convinced that she was lost, Iwafuchi did not leave the spot she was in for two days.
She even slept beside the trail hoping she would be rescued.
But let alone being spotted, she didn´t even hear a sound that could be faintly connected to a human being. She then decided that waiting for rescue was meaningless, and she had to find a way back herself. "For the remaining days, I walked from sunrise till sunset," she said in Kathmandu on Friday. Iwafuchi survived for the first three days on river water.
She knew that a person can last for as long as 10 days without food.
But after three days, she couldn´t keep from eating grass, leaves and bamboo shoots.Clinging to Life
She slept inside rock caves, and under trees, covering herself with bamboo leaves to keep her warm.
"It wasn´t too cold, so I knew I wouldn´t die of cold," she said.
Once, it rained at night and she was completely soaked. But looking back at how things turned out, she feels glad that it didn´t rain the rest of the nights. Daytime drizzle, though, was common.
Iwafuchi doesn´t subscribe to any religion. But she has a strong belief that she cannot die before her parents. Also, she believes she has many more people to meet, and her life won´t end before she meets them. It was beliefs like these, however funny they may sound, that gave her strength to cling on to life.
"I was thinking about surviving and going back. I promised to God that if I survive, I will be more generous and kind to people. I also thought about friends I wanted to meet," she said.
But there were times when she was overtaken by despair. She feared that her one stupid mistake of not sticking to the main trekking trial was going to cost her nothing less than her life. She was embarrassed and very angry with herself.
Her daily wandering was leading her to nowhere until June 6 when she found a trail she believed was the one she had strayed from on the first day of her ordeal.
"[After finding the trail] I thought God had given me the last change. I thought if I followed the trail, I would survive," she said.
Found!
On June 7, eleven Nepali travelers were noisily walking along a trail downhill from Hotel Peaceful Lake. Iwafuchi overheard them and cried for help.
The travelers stopped, and one of them came over looking for her. She was found!
The group showed her the way to her hotel. It was a 50-minute trek from where she was found.
Only after reaching the hotel did Iwafuchi realize that throughout the two weeks, she had wandered along a radius of just 500 meters from the hotel.
On June 8, she was taken to Dhunche Hospital, where Inspector Sitaram Chapagain took her statement.
Medical examinations at the hospital surprisingly revealed that all her vital signs were all right. But her body was full of insect-bite injuries, and her toes covered by blisters.
She rested that day at the hospital and travelled to Kathmandu on Thursday."I lost six kilograms during the two weeks," she said.
Iwafuchi will continue to trek, but probably not alone anymore.
She is embarrassed that she burdened policemen and soldiers who spent two weeks looking for her. She is also full of apologies for making her parents worried, and for making them travel to Nepal looking for her.
Most of all, she is feeling the weight of gratitude for the police, soldiers, and commoners who spent so many days looking for her.
"I don´t know how I can repay their kindness," she said.
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Published on 2011-06-11 02:30:01
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Japanese trekker, Nepali guide killed in avalanche
A Japanese trekker and Nepali guide were killed by avalanche at the base of Naya Kanga peak (5,844 m) in Rashuwa district.
An avalanche swept 63-year-old Masue Yoshida and her Nepali guide on Saturday, according to reports.
The Nepali guide is yet to be identified and preparations are underway to bring the dead bodies to Kathmandu by Thursday.
Meanwhile, another Japanese trekker, Makiko Iwafuchi, 49, of Tokyo, who was missing since two weeks, has been found alive. She is in good condition at a local hospital in Rashuwa, according to local police officials.
Locals had found her on Tuesday and informed the nearby security post to carry her to the hospital. nepalnews.com
·· AUBREY SACCO FROM COLORADO USA, who should now be age 25,· went missing
·· in the Nepalese HIMALAYAS, during a TREK in LANGTANG National Park north of
Kathmandu since April 2010. Until now this case remains unsolved.···
If any new information is getting available this will probably be published world wide.
Never before in the· modern history of a missing foreigner in Nepal a case has
received such huge and wide attention particularly in her home country!·  ························· click picture to follow the case on facebook ··························· ······················································· This is due to the never ceasing effort of her parents and family members to find out the truth behind what happened to her. Almost a dozen unsolved missing cases· of foreign trekkers (male and female) accumulated in Nepal during the last decade.
This is an alarming sign and definitely much more has to be done by the Nepalese Authorities to assure sound security and safety measure along the trekking routes and in terms of assistance
if a hiker is reported missing.The year 2011 is announced to be the VISIT NEPAL Year by the Government of Nepal.After a long period of political upheaval and uncertainty the Nepalese Trekking & Tourism industryhopes to regain an image of being a top class destination for adventure trekking and culturalsight seeing tours along the rich historical sites of the country.We sincerely hope that Aubrey's case will be solved. Let us also hope that the Authorities and the Organizers of
VISIT NEPAL YEAR· have learned a lesson from this disturbing case and the enormous hardship
her family and friends are experiencing due to the mysterious vanishing of Aubrey. Nepal's good name is at stage and no one over here can afford it that a next unsolved case of missing foreign
guests appears. We all got to do our homework on this , for otherwise the day may come that Nepal's image
as a safe tourism destination is lost. The then "lost trekkers"; those who AVOID to come to our country will
cause the loss of tens - of - thousands jobs amongst young Nepalese!
SARDOGS NEPAL keeps the records from HRDSN of Missing foreign trekkers since 1991.
If anyone has an equiry about older cases, solved or unsolved, we will provide these data
free of charge. However some cases are not included here as per the wish of the family of the victim.
You can contact us per e-mail from our last page on this website.
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