Rescuers have ended a joint Russian-Chinese search for the last
of six Russian tourists who participated in an ill-fated canoeing
trip in northwest China.
Chinese and Russian search and rescue experts met in Hotan City,
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, yesterday
evening, where they agreed to end the 16-day search for Dmitry
Tishchenko.
They said they had found no signs of more survivors in the area
of the Yurungkax River, on which the canoeing expedition took
place.
Tishchenko would be officially registered as "missing" and the
Chinese rescuers would continue land searches for him, they
agreed.
China contributed three helicopters and 40,000 people to the
search. Russia sent 40 rescuers to participate in the
operation.
The six Russian tourists failed to show up to meet their Chinese
interpreter in Hotan as scheduled on Sepember. 2 after they set out
on the Yurungkax River in southern Xinjiang in mid-August.
The rescuers have found only two survivors, Alexander Zverev and
Andrey Pautov, and discovered the bodies of three men: Sergey
Chernik, 47, and Ivan Chernik, 25, who were father and son, and
Vladimir Smetannikov, 25.
(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2007)
