Nine trapped students in Pingxi Mountain area found safe and sound

Nine 17-year-old vocational high school sophomores from Songshan Industrial and Agricultural High School in Taipei City went hiking in the Fengtoujian Mountain area of Pingxi District, New Taipei City on the 23rd. They called the fire department around 5 p.m. after getting lost. The fire department dispatched multiple rescue personnel to the scene and reached the location where the nine students were stranded at 9:45 p.m. Fortunately, all nine are safe and in good health.

Rescue personnel conducted a preliminary check on the nine students and found that none were injured or suffering from hypothermia. They are expected to be back at the Pingxi Fire Station around 1 a.m. on the 24th and will be handed over to their parents.

The fire department received a call at 5:30 p.m. from someone claiming to be a student from Songshan Industrial and Agricultural High School, who said that he and eight classmates had set off from the hiking entrance next to Pingxi Junior High School at 11:30 a.m., hiked through Cihufeng to the Fengtoujian Mountain area, and when they wanted to return home in the afternoon, they couldn’t find the way down, and hadn’t brought a flashlight. They asked firefighters for help getting out and used the LINE app to share their location for rescuers’ reference.

Since the students said they had power banks and phone signal was available, and no one was injured, but there were no landmarks such as signs, utility poles, or high-voltage towers near the mountaintop for orientation, the fire department asked the nine to stay put at the reported location and informed the school to notify their parents that the nine students were in good health.

The nine students once requested that rescuers send a helicopter to speed up the process, but since there was no immediate danger and the mountain area had no lighting facilities, even if a helicopter was deployed, it would be hard to spot the students visually, posing a risk of collision with the mountain. The fire department decided to proceed with a ground rescue operation.

(China Times)