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Ana Gil Zaratiegui / José Carlos Rojo
Santander
Friday, 27 December 2024, 09:55
An extensive search operation is under way in the north of Spain for a 23-year-old man from León who has been missing for three days in the Picos de Europa. It was the climber's brother who raised the alarm by alerting the 112 emergency services of Castilla y León last Wednesday at noon, Christmas Day. He had been unable to contact the young mountaineer since 23 December, the day on which the young man spoke to his family from the mountain refuge of Casetón de Andara. From there he intended to descend alone to Sotres on a demanding route taking several days between Bejes and Covadonga.
Since then, the young man, who was reported missing after failing to reach the meeting point on Christmas Day, has been missing. The Cantabrian regional government began the search on Wednesday with a helicopter in the area. After the unsuccessful operation, a Level 1 search operation was reactivated on Thursday, in which, in addition to the air search, terrestrial means and drones were incorporated.
#ProteccionCivil del @cantabriaes participa en el dispositivo de búsqueda de la persona desaparecida en los #PicosdeEuropa
— 112 Cantabria (@112Cantabria) December 26, 2024
En #Sotres se ha instalado el centro de mando conjunto con #Asturias para coordinar las labores de rastreo
👉https://t.co/iwh7JTRavr pic.twitter.com/OmjEwFDe9L
Thursday's operation consisted of a single advanced command post of Cantabrian and Asturian personnel which began the search from the town of Sotres. A team of 14 people travelled from Cantabria to the Asturian town: four ground rescuers, a technician, three from the Red Cross, a drone pilot and a helicopter team of five people.
El Casetón de Andara, the last known location of the disappeared person that the family knew of, is a unique mountain refuge located in the heart of Liébana, at an altitude of 1,700 metres in the eastern massif of the Picos de Europa. Access to the refuge is possible from Bejes or Sotres. The missing person had headed there from Bejes, from where he left on 21 December with the plan to descend to the Sotres area, separated by a route of approximately 16 kilometres.
Those who know the area know how difficult this type of long routes of several days can be, especially in winter with ice and snow: "The part from Bejes to the refuge is simple, without any problems, but from Andara to Covadonga is another story, it is very, very complicated, there are many paths and you have to know where you are going, otherwise you are lost.... I have a lot of experience and I wouldn't dare to do something like that, that area is high mountain, very steep and complicated even for experts", explained Toño Ruiz de Villa, with extensive mountain experience, while emphasising the difficulty for the search teams: "The hope is that the drones will detect the missing people by thermal imaging, but with this ice and cold it complicates everything a lot".
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