24-year-old missing since Saturday at Hochkalter
timeline
For three days, mountain rescuers have been trying to rescue a 24-year-old climber from the Hochkalter in the Berchtesgaden Alps. The man had fallen 2,400 meters on difficult terrain and had already made an emergency call on Saturday afternoon. The search for him has so far been unsuccessful.
The hope of finding the young man from Lower Saxony who died on Saturday alive is fading. Early Monday evening at around 6:15 p.m., a short weather window was used for a flight with the police helicopter to search for the missing Lower Saxony. But the search was unsuccessful.
Climbers made conflicting statements
The young man from Lower Saxony had traveled alone by train on Saturday, set off on his high-alpine tour despite the early onset of winter and then made an emergency call around 3 p.m. in the afternoon, which was received by the Tyrol control center in Innsbruck. According to the report, he initially stated that while climbing up at an estimated height of around 2,400 meters, he had slipped a longer distance and injured his head and broken both arms, getting into terrain that was dangerous and having difficulty not falling further .
Since then, more than 30 mountain rescuers have been looking for the casualty. You had several telephone contacts with the 24-year-old. In the meantime he stated that he was not serious after all. In another phone call, the young man then called new coordinates from his cell phone, which left a different location on the Hochkalter than previously assumed.
Bad weather makes search operations difficult
An exact location of the missing person’s phone failed several times. On Saturday evening, the first emergency services had to stop at around 8 p.m. due to the adverse conditions in the snowstorm. Bad weather is currently forecast for Tuesday, and the emergency services are expecting an improvement on Wednesday, which may allow further flights with helicopters and drones.