By Xinhua
Hotan (China) : A Russian tourist, surviving on river water for 25 days, was rescued Friday, a month after he disappeared along with his five companions on a rafting trip in northwest China.
Alexander Zverev, 35, was spotted at about 10:30 a.m. local time Friday walking along the banks of the Yurungkax River by Chinese and Russian rescuers from the air.
Doctors said Zverev had lost 24 kg during the ordeal and was suffering from dehydration and malnutrition.
“But his blood pressure, pulse and lungs appear perfectly normal,” said Miao Xinrong, deputy president with the Hotan People’s Hospital, where Zverev is hospitalised.
A few hours after his rescue, Zverev began to explain the tragic sequence of events that had unfolded soon after the group set off in two catamarans along the Yurungkax river in the Kunlun Mountains on Aug 19.
Two of his companions, Sergey Chernik, 47, and Ivan Chernik, 25, fell into the river and drowned Aug 24, four days after they started rafting, Zverev said.
He and the remaining three members of the group placed the bodies under one of the catamarans on the riverbank and continued rafting in the other boat after failing to find a way out by land.
However, their boat capsized Aug 28 and two members of the team drowned in a whirlpool. He managed to swim to the bank. The body of a third man, Vladimir Smetannikov, 25, has already been found.
“Survival instincts and willpower kept me alive,” said Zverev, saying that he had always believed rescuers would come.
He said he had slept in caves at night to stave off the cold.
“It is a miracle that Zverev managed to survive in an uninhabited mountainous area at an elevation of 4,000 metres,” said Zhang Shaoyun, deputy chief of the local rescue headquarters.
Zverev had no belongings with him and his shoes were worn out, said Li Yongjun, the Chinese pilot in charge of the rescue operation.
“He kept walking back and forth in the helicopter and trying to talk. He appeared exhausted, but very excited,” said Li.
Rescuers are still searching for the two missing Russians, identified as Andrey Pautov and Dmitry Tishchenko.
The search was suspended earlier this week due to persistent sandstorms.