Bodies of 5 climbers recovered from Mayon

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines   â€“ The bodies of five mountain climbers killed in last Tuesday’s explosion of Mayon volano were finally retrieved from the slopes, officials said yesterday.

Raffy Alejandro, regional director of the Office of Civil Defense, said the bodies of Germans Joanne Edosa, Roland Pietieze and Furian Stelter and Spaniard Farah Frances were brought down to Camp I in San Roque, Malilipot, Albay at noon yesterday.

The body of the local guide, Jerome Berin, was retrieved with the help of relatives who accompanied the rescuers up the mountain early yesterday.

The bodies of the foreigners were picked up by two helicopters and taken to the Air Force Tactical Operations Group (TOG) at the Legazpi Airport compound before being brought to a local funeral parlor.

“We are going to send these cadavers via plane to Manila and turn them over to the personnel of the German embassy,” Alejandro said.

Ansgar Kreamnitzer, the German consular attaché in the Philippines, coordinated with the Albay Provincial Security and Management Office (APSEMO) to conduct a post mortem examination on the bodies before they were embalmed.

The Spanish embassy also made a similar request.

“Just as we request the foreign countries for assistance for our overseas contract workers, we are doing everything to provide fast, special and quality postmortem care,” Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said.

Salceda said the German, Spanish and Thai consular offices had been coordinating with APSEMO on the status of the retrieval and rescue operations.

Thai Consul General Rooge Thammongkol went to the headquarters of the Air Force here to coordinate and to find the latest update on the rescue of Boonchai Jattuporpong.

Officials said Boonchai remained at the site some 1,800 meters above sea level as his rescuers were guiding him down.

Alejandro said a group of rescuers were assisting Boonchai in descending the slippery and steep terrain.

“Our rescuers are doing all the possible and effective means to speed up the descent of the Thai national. He is wounded that’s why he could not walk very fast,” Alejandro said.

He said rescuers had to strap Boonchai on a spine board and carry him down. The rescuers had to resort to a relay system, or handing the survivor over to another group of rescuers, then to yet another for a safe descent. It will take about seven to eight hours to bring Boonchai from Camp 2 to Camp 1, Alejandro said.

Helicopters would return and fetch the wounded Thai today.

“We cannot also risk the lives of our rescuers to bring him down,” Alejandro explained.

Alejandro asaid the rescuers had difficulty bringing the bodies of the foreigners down because of the rocky terrain.

The body bags were splattered with mud, indicating the ordeal the rescuers had gone through to bring them down the steep slopes for the past 31 hours.

“Our retrieval team of at least five had to crawl going up while they had to slide on their buttocks while negotiating the terrain already covered by ash fall,” he said.

The Air Force rescuers added strong winds prevailing over Mayon made it difficult for the helicopter pilots to maneuver and land at the campsites on the volcano slope where other wounded are still being treated.

“The wind over Mayon is most of the times very strong and gives us difficulty in making a landing. Good that the weather improved before noon that gave us chance to airlift the bodies to Legazpi City,” Air Force TOG commander Lt. Col. Pedro Francisco III said.

The German embassy expressed sadness over the death of its three nationals killed in last Tuesday’s eruption.  – Pia Lee-Brago, Rainier Allan Ronda