Rockslide: Weather a factor?
2006-01-05 14:38
Dar es Salaam - Three American mountain climbers were killed and another seriously wounded along with four porters in a rockslide on Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro, an official and tour operators at Africa's highest peak said on Thursday.
The dead and injured were in two groups that were hit early on Wednesday by a cascade of falling rocks and boulders dislodged by a strong gust of wind as they hiked above the Arrow Glacier on the western breach of the mountain at about 4,877m, they said.
"A rapid change of weather forced several rocks to tumble and slide down the gradient," said James Wakibara, the acting chief warden of Kilimanjaro National Park. "The rocks hit a group of tourists who were en route to the peak and three were killed."
"Five other people were seriously injured, among them one American and four Tanzanians," he told AFP by phone from the base of the mountain where efforts were still under way on Thursday morning to recover two of the bodies. "Several others, all Tanzanaian porters, sustained various form of minor injuries."
Wakibara said the seriously injured had been evacuated by a flying doctor service and were being treated at a hospital in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
The identities of the dead climbers were not immediately known but officials at the two mountaineering groups that organized their trips confirmed they were all US citizens.
Wesley Krause of African Environments that had 11 clients on Kilimanjaro at the time of the accident said two of the dead Americans were part of his firm's group. Zainab Ansell, of Zara Tanzanian Adventures, that had 15 clients on the mountain, said the third was in her company's group.
- SAPA