33 climbers feared missing on Mount Brik

BAU, Sarawak: Thirty-three climbers are feared to have gone missing since Saturday during an expedition up Mount Brik in Kampung Tringus, about 30km from Bau town.

A report on the incident was lodged by an individual identified as Royling Ken at the Bau District Police headquarters here at 8.30am today after the climbers failed to return yesterday as scheduled.

It would take six hours to climb the mountain to get to the location where the climbers are believed to have gone missing.

According to a spokesman of the State Fire and Rescue Department, the expedition was organised by a club for climbers on Saturday and the participants were scheduled to return yesterday.

The spokesman said the Fire and Rescue Department was notified of the incident at 7.10am today and a team of fire-fighters from the Bau Fire and Rescue Station headed by Senior Fire Officer Kadri Bogol was mobilised to conduct a search-and-rescue operation.

A Special Tactical Operations Response Management (STORM) team and an elite Multi Skill Team (MUST) were expected to join the fire-fighters who began to move to the location this afternoon, the spokesman said, adding that the police, People's Volunteer Corps (Rela) and villagers would also join the search. — Bernama