The family of a Brazilian hiker who was found dead in a volcano in Indonesia have accused the local search and rescue team of being too slow in their efforts to reach her.
Juliana Marins, 26, a dancer and publicist from Niterói, fell down a cliff while hiking up Gunung Rinjani, an active Indonesian volcano on the island of Lombok, last week. After a perilous four-day search, which was hampered by rough terrain and adverse weather, authorities retrieved her remains on Wednesday.
Her body was lifted from the cliff and carried on a stretcher to the rescuers’ nearest post, where an ambulance transported it to a hospital.
Marins’ family has now claimed that she could have been saved had the rescue team been more prompt with their search efforts and reached the site sooner.
“Juliana suffered great negligence on the part of the rescue team,” the family posted on social media on Wednesday.
“If the team had reached her within the estimated time of 7 hours, Juliana would still be alive,” the family said, according to Brazilian broadcaster TV Globo. “Juliana deserved much more! Now we are going to seek justice for her, because that is what she deserves! Don’t give up on Juliana!”
In a separate post, her family thanked “the volunteers who bravely” helped to finally retrieve her body.
Mohammad Syafii, the head of Indonesia’s rescue agency, said he had met the family to explain the challenges that delayed the rescue efforts. He added that they “accept the situation we were facing”, The Straits Times reported.
He said the body was recovered on Wednesday in a retrieval process that took six hours. “Initially, we would [have liked] to use a helicopter in the evacuation, but it [was] not possible due to the weather conditions,” he said. “So, we had to evacuate the victim on stretchers, which took quite a long time.”
Footage shared by the agency showed rescuers attempting to lift the body from the cliff using ropes, overshadowed by thick fog.
Marins’ body was taken to the neighbouring island of Bali on Thursday for an autopsy to confirm the cause and time of death. “Now the autopsy will be carried out in Bali. We looked for the closest option, which is Denpasar,” deputy governor of West Nusa Tenggara province, Indah Dhamayanti Putri said, adding: “They want to know the time of death.”
Brazil’s foreign ministry said that after four days of work, “made difficult by adverse weather, ground and visibility conditions in the regions, the Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency found the body of the Brazilian tourist”.
Marins slipped during a group trek near the crater of Rinjani, Indonesia’s second-highest volcano. She had been hiking with five other foreign tourists and a local guide last Saturday morning when she lost her footing and plunged down a cliffside, reportedly falling about 600m.
The fall happened at around 6.30am local time on a trail ringing the volcano’s dramatic crater rim.
She survived the initial fall and was reportedly seen moving and calling for help, but successive rescue efforts were thwarted by fog, shifting sands and steep, unstable terrain.
A fellow hiker later told Brazilian TV the terrain was extremely slippery and visibility was poor at the time, the BBC reported.
Marins had been on a backpacking trip across Asia since February, visiting the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand before arriving in Indonesia. Her posts on social media captured her love of dance as well as travel.