The two hikers who went missing in the Himalayas seven weeks ago have been found. One of them, 18-year-old Liu Chen-chun, died just three days before the rescue. Her boyfriend, 20-year-old Liang Sheng-yue, hadn’t left her side.
The Taiwanese couple went missing early in March after they ran into a snowstorm in the Rasuwa District of Nepal. Without the aid of a guide, they reportedly became disoriented and fell off a cliff into a steep ravine. There, they took shelter from the storm in a cave.
According to CNN, Liang and Liu were on the Ganesh Himal route, just west of Kathmandu. They’d arrived in Nepal at the tail end of February with plans to hike in the Tamang mountain region. Then, on March 9, the family lost contact with them. Soon after, Nepali authorities launched a search party. It continued for weeks but had to be called off due to inclement weather. For 10 days, the couple survived off of food they’d brought with them. When that ran out, they lived off salt and melted snow.
Liang, soon after his rescue. Photo: CNN
When the search resumed a few days ago, rescuers weren’t hopeful as the pair had been lost in the Himalayas for 47 days. Survival wasn’t likely. On Wednesday morning, though, the team spotted the pair and airlifted Liang out of a ravine near the Narchet River, along with Lui’s body.”In our heads, we never thought they would be alive,” said Madhav Basnet, who is one of the three rescuers. “When we found the boy alive, we got scared for a second. He greeted us by saying ‘Namaste.’ He was very happy.”
Liang, along with the body of his girlfriend, was airlifted to a hospital in Kathmandu. Image: CNN
Liu’s body and Liang were flown to a hospital in Kathmandu, where doctors say the young man is physically alright. After nearly 50 days in the wild, he’d lost 66 pounds. “He appears exhausted and lost some 30 kilograms of body weight,” Ajay Singh Thapa, a doctor at the Grande Hospital, told CBS. “He was suffering from severe malnutrition. His foot was covered with maggots and hair full of lice. Despite having to live like that for 47 days, he appears to be mostly normal.”
A family member gives water to Liang Sheng-yueh at the Grande Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Wed., April 26, 2017, after his rescue. Photo: AP
