SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Rescue workers on Tuesday searched for a group of tourists who went missing in a powerful snowstorm in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park, in the southern Patagonia region, which killed at least two Mexicans, according to media reports.
The victims included a woman who died after being evacuated, according to local broadcaster T13.
Guillermo Ruiz, the presidential delegate for Chile’s southern Ultima Esperanza province, told T13 that first responders were still trying to locate seven people, but the bad weather was complicating search efforts.
The tourists are lost near the national park’s Los Perros camp, which Ruiz said was reachable only by a four- to five-hour trek from the closest accessible point by vehicle.
The area was struck by a snowstorm with fierce wind speeds surpassing 193 kmh (120 mph) – equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane.
It was unclear where the missing tourists came from.
The Torres del Paine National Park, with its jutting mountaintops and subpolar forests, spans about 1,810 square kilometers (700 square miles) and hosts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
(Reporting by Sarah MorlandEditing by Rod Nickel)
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