Morocco locates missing Spanish cavers, rescue launched

Moroccan emergency services on Saturday launched an operation to rescue three Spanish cavers found alive by search teams in the High Atlas mountains, an official said.

The trio were found at the bottom of a cliff in the commune of Tamest in the southern Ouarzazate region, the MAP news agency reported.

It said two doctors had joined a rescue operation launched by the royal gendarmerie and emergency services.

The Spaniards were identified as 26-year-old lawyer Gustavo Virues and policemen Juan Bolivar and Jose Antonio Martinez, both 41.

Martinez’s wife, Julia Ordonez, said one of the three had been injured hurt, but was unable to provide details.

“What we know is that one of them is in need of medical help because the other two were moving and signalling for help when a helicopter passed overhead,” Ordonez told Spanish state television TVE.

Zoubir Bouhour, head of the Ouarzazate regional tourism organisation, said earlier that “helicopters and elements of the civil defence were participating in the rescue effort”.

But he warned that access to the area is difficult, with no possibility of the helicopters landing. Rescuers will have to make their way on foot for nearly an hour to reach the site.

The area they had been exploring includes peaks of around 4,000 metres (13,125 feet) that have been covered with snow from a heavy winter, and been subjected to a sudden rise in temperatures in recent days.

Media in Madrid, quoting interior ministry sources, said seven Spanish policemen from a unit specialising in rescue efforts would arrive later Saturday to join the operation.

The three caving enthusiasts had been missing for several days, and fears that they could have been caught up in flash floods caused by melting snow had prompted intensive air and ground searches.

They were part of a group of nine Spaniards who had split up on Sunday to explore different caves.

– ‘They are in trouble’ –

They were all supposed to have met up in Ouarzazate, and when the three failed to do so by Tuesday afternoon their fellow cavers alerted the authorities.

“They are not backpackers; they are prepared and have training and a great deal of experience, both in mountain climbing and caving” in the Alps and the Andes, Ordonez said.

“If they didn’t go to the meeting place it is because they are in trouble.”

On Friday, one of their companions told Spanish radio Canal Sur the men may have been caught in a canyon by a flash flood caused by melting snow.

“We hope they are on a (rock) shelf waiting for the water levels to drop,” Jose Morillas said.

Julio Perea, the president of a Spanish mountain sports federation in which the three cavers are members, also said he believed they were trapped by rising waters.

Ouarzazate lies to the south of the High Atlas mountain range on the edge of the desert, about 510 kilometres (320 miles) by road from the capital Rabat