BUENOS AIRES, November 18 (Itar-Tass) — Chilean rescue teams have stopped searching for three tourists, including 32-year-old Russian national Dmitry Simenkov, who have gone missing in the mountains, Jeanette Medrano, the director of regional department for emergency situations, said in an interview with the Argentine daily newspaper La Nacion (The Nation) on Saturday.
She said that the rescuers had combed 32,000 hectares of Argentine territory. A decision to stop the rescue operation in which about 300 people had taken part was made after nine days of search.
Unfortunately, no traces of the missing tourists had been found. The rescue effort was aggravated by bad weather in the first days of the search.
Dmitry Simenkov arrived in Chile as tourist in September 2012. He went on a trip to the slopes of Villarrica, one of the most active volcanoes in Chile, together with his two friends from France and Italy on November 7. They stopped for the night in the mountains.
“The tourists didn’t’ coordinate their actions with appropriate services. They tried to ascend to the crater of Villarrica volcano, located at a height of 2,500 meters in a national park, on foot. However, the group didn’t return in the evening of the same day as planned. There has been no news from then since then,” the Russian Foreign Ministry reports.