Unfortunately, same type tragedy happened with Hungarian speleologists,
like with their Ukrainian fellows, in course of descending from the
mountain, already in the forest zone, at Jan-20.
After successful exploration work, on a route from the cave entrance to the
village which normally takes 1 hour, three members of the expedition walked
already 5 hours because of very bad snow conditions but reached just some
half of the distance.
Then they were crashed by an avalanch which was not fatal yet: all of the
survived but could not move forward due to extremely dangerous situation.
Therefore asked for help via Hungarian Cave Rescue Service, giving their
GPS coordinates. Unfortunately, no air rescue was possible due to bad
weather. Later mobil connection bacame impossible with them.
Then a second avalanch crushed them wich became already lethal. One
survivor fighted three hours under snow for his life, but he could not find
the others until late night. They were found dead by Italian rescue team,
on the next day when the survivor was found as well.
Another three members, finishing their underground work later, are already
in safety, at home.
Italian Rescue Service takes special care for those four who are
countinuing exploration in the cave (without the knowledge of the accident) and they arrived back safely today."
Dr. Miklós Nyerges
The secretary of the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service
Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Department of Organic Chemical Technology
Technical University of Budapest
H-1521 Budapest P.O.B. 91, Hungary
Web: http://www.barlang.hu/pages/nyerges.htm
Phone: (+361)-463-22-13
Mobile: (+36)-20-493-8157
Fax:(+361)-463-36-48
Pager: (+36)-50-428-378
email: mnyerges@mail.bme.hu