The Consulate General in Calcutta redeployed in Nepal has received confirmation that the Milan agency and the Nepalese agency have managed to communicate with the group of five hikers from the province of Como with whom they had not had contact for days. The compatriots reported that they were well and that they will continue their program, returning to Kathmandu on 8 November. This was announced by the Farnesina.
Engaged in a trek in an area without telephone network coverage, the group, in fact, had not sent communications to the agency responsible for the excursion, as was foreseen in the program, alerting those who are working on the rescue. The five, who left from Como, would also be on a different itinerary from that of Di Marcello and Kirchler and today they have connections with Italy which yesterday remained in suspense.
For the two missing Marco Di Marcello and Markus Kirchler, the Farnesina specifies that there are ‘little chances of survival’
Hopes therefore seem to be fading in Castellalto, in the Teramo area, the place of origin of Marco Di Marcello, a 37-year-old biologist with a passion for the mountains. On Tuesday the body of his friend and fellow countryman, the photographer Paolo Cocco, was recovered by rescuers, but Di Marcello’s family tries not to give in to pessimism, relying on that GPS signal which continues to update every four hours. «We are convinced that Marco is alive and that he is trying with the means available to be found – the words of his brother Gianni -. I’m sure he put the tracker on distress call, because it broadcast multiple locations and with a shorter frequency of updates. We see that it moves continuously, it did so uphill and at a distance of 500 meters from where it was previously: then it goes back and we believe that it has found a tunnel, has dug a kind of shelter, at least this is our hope, where it can gather to face the temperatures and the night. He is strong, Marco will make it.”
In Bolzano, however, many people remember the 29-year-old Markus Kirchler, now taking his disappearance for certain even if his body has not been found or identified. His former technical-economic institute, the Heinrich Kunter in Bolzano, remembers him “as a thoughtful and determined young man, who faced his tasks with calm and passion”. “The entire school community is close in thought to his family and friends,” we read on the school website.
What is certain, at the moment, is that three Italians died in the Nepalese mountains: the 28-year-old Alessandro Caputo from Milan, the 45-year-old Stefano Farronato from Veneto and the 41-year-old Paolo Cocco from Abruzzo. The first two were in the same group, while Cocco was part of a different expedition, in which the missing Di Marcello and Kirchler also participated. According to what was reported by the Nepalese media, the discrepancy between the numbers provided by the Farnesina and those of the local authorities derives from the fact that “mountaineers” need authorization from the Department of Tourism, while “hikers” are exempt. According to official data from the Department, 28 authorizations have been granted to Italian “mountaineers” for this autumn. While the Nepal Tourist Office would have issued as many as 2,705 permits to as many Italian “hikers” in October.