A SEARCH has been launched for a British mountaineer who has gone missing in Spain in bad weather conditions.<\/p>\n
The 61-year-old told emergency responders he was \u201clost and exhausted\u201d when he made his last call around 7pm yesterday.<\/p>\n
He had travelled to the famous Picos de Europa mountain range in northern Spain.<\/p>\n
A helicopter was mobilised as part of an ongoing land and air search once his location was narrowed down but he has yet to be located.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for a regional government-run emergency response coordination centre said late yesterday: \u201cWe are coordinating a rescue that began at 7.11pm on Thursday after receiving a call from the Castilla and Leon province emergency centre, informing a British mountaineer aged 61 had become disorientated when he was doing a mountain route in the Picos de Europa.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that moment he didn\u2019t know where he was, the weather conditions were bad, with wind, low clouds and intermittent rain, and he said he was exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saying his rough location was established through coordinates he gave, the spokesman added: \u201cA regional government rescue helicopter was mobilised with two rescuers on board, one of them a nurse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Guardia Civil and provincial firefighters were also alerted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they reached the area the British man was understood to be in, the rescue helicopter carried out several reconnaissance fly-overs but was unable to spot him.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs night fell, rescuers accessed the area on foot and began to search it with a Guardia Civil specialist mountain search and rescue team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe operation continued until the early hours of this morning despite the adverse weather conditions, as it had started snowing in the area. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe search was resumed at first light today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officials in the neighbouring region of Asturias just above the Castilla and Leon region have also been asked for help.<\/p>\n
A Guardia Civil spokesman said giving more details of the search area: \u201cA search operation is underway in the Picos de Europa for a 61-year-old who is disorientated in the area between Cain and Torrecerredo in Leon.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the night Civil Guard mountain specialists with other emergency responders have been combing the area with the co-ordinates they had been given.<\/p>\n
\u201cBackup units have been incorporated into the ongoing operation at first light.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Picos de Europa – Peaks of Europe in English – are a mountain range extending for around 12 miles forming part of the Cantabrian Mountains in northern Spain.<\/p>\n
The range is situated in the autonomous communities of Asturias, Cantabria and Castile and Leon.<\/p>\n
The highest peak is Torre de Cerredo which is 2650 metres (8,690ft) high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A SEARCH has been launched for a British mountaineer who has gone missing in Spain in bad weather…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1213,1578,1114,2396,12730,12731,12728,17,528,12729],"class_list":["post-24035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-british","tag-europa","tag-for","tag-missing","tag-mountaineer","tag-picos","tag-search","tag-spain","tag-spains","tag-underway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}