At least three people have died and three others disappeared in an avalanche on a snow-covered volcano in Ecuador, Chimborazo (center), authorities announced on Sunday (October 24).
A previous assessment of the integrated security service ECU911 reported four dead and one injured. “It is reported that there are three mountaineers missing, three dead, three injured and seven rescued, out of a total of 16 people”Quito firefighters said in a statement.
The climbers who climbed the Chimborazo are Ecuadorians, according to the Quito daily El Comercio.
The avalanche is not linked to the activity of the volcano and, according to the firefighters, it is due to ” weather conditions “. “A group of people were climbing the snow-covered Chimborazo when an avalanche hit them at 6 100 meters “ above sea level, the ECU911 said in a statement.
Chimborazo is a snow-capped volcano in Ecuador reaching an altitude of 6,293 meters, about 130 km south of Quito. It is the highest peak in the Ecuadorian Andes and one of the highest in the world. At its feet are the towns of Riobamba and Ambato (capitals of the provinces of Chimborazo and Tungurahua). The massif, where skiing is not practiced, attracts national and foreign climbers.
Temporary closure
Police and soldiers specializing in high mountain operations, as well as rescuers, went to Chimborazo, where the authorities set up a unified command post to coordinate rescue actions.
The Ecuadorian Ministry of the Environment has ordered the temporary closure of the Chimborazo Nature Reserve, which is constantly visited by tourists.
In 2003, the carcass of an Ecuadorian plane which crashed in 1976 with 59 people on board was found at the foot of the volcano. The device had crashed into a wall of Chimborazo and was hidden by snow after an avalanche until it was found by climbers about 700 meters from the summit.
In 2015, the remains of three climbers, probably foreigners, who had disappeared twenty to thirty years earlier, were also found at an altitude of 5,600 meters.
In 1994, an avalanche on the Chimborazo killed ten people, including six French and one Swiss.
The last eruption of the volcano occurred between the start of Ve century and the end of VIIe century, according to the Geophysical Institute of Quito. “The average interval between eruptions is a thousand years and therefore Chimborazo is considered a potentially active volcano”.