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New Zealand man goes missing during Mount Merbabu hike
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Mount Merbabu, Central Java (Shutterstock/File)
A
search and rescue team is searching for a New Zealand national, Andrey Voytech, who was reported missing during a hike on Mount Merbabu in Central Java over the weekend.
The team has not found the 34-year-old man as of Monday. Voytech reportedly went missing on Friday while passing Cuntel on the Kopeng hiking trail.
He departed to Merbabu by motorbike from Yogyakarta with his friend Sistha Amina Ferdiyani on Thursday evening before he started to hike the mountain by himself early morning on Friday.
Voytech told Sistha through a WhatsApp message at 8 a.m. on Friday that he would descend at 2 p.m. The last contact made between the two occurred at 4 p.m., when Voytech texted her saying that he was in the middle of the woods.
“He should have climbed down on Friday because he was supposed to go back home to New Zealand on Saturday,” Sistha said on Monday.
The search and rescue team had filed a missing person report to the Getasan Police after Sistha told rescue personnel about Voytech on Saturday.
Four teams of around 120 people consisting of National Park personnel, local police officers and volunteers were deployed to comb the hiking trails.
“The joint SAR team is still conducting the search. There are hikers who claimed to have met him in the Thekelan area,” Sigit said.
Separately, National Park official Johan Setiawan said his office had temporarily closed the hiking trails in Cuntel and Thekelan to facilitate the search. (dpk/rin)
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