Mountaineer Malli Mastan Babu missing in Andes, family prays in Tirupati
Mastan is well known in the international mountaineering circles as the fastest summiteers for climbing in all seven continents.
Family members of famous mountaineer Malli Mastan Babu who is reported missing from the Andes Mountains are desperately appealing to Governments of Argentina and Chile to mount an aerial search operation for him, after he failed to return to a base camp four days ago.
Mastan, 40, hails from Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, and he and his friends hailing from various countries were supposed to summit the Cerro Tres Cruces Sur, at 21748 feet in the Andes of Atacama on the Chilean side of the Andes Range, and were climbing from Argentina side.
Mastan is well known in the international mountaineering circles as the fastest summiteers for climbing in all seven continents.
“I sent him a message on March 21 wishing him luck and he replied. That was our last contact with him. His last known location is Cerro Tress Cruces on the Argentinian side. It seems that as the weather was bad, he advised his fellow mountaineers to stay put at the base camp and went alone on March 23 to check out the route up and was supposed to return by evening. He is missing since then. He was booked to return to India on March 28,” Dr Malli Dorsannamma, his sister, said from Tirupati today.
“We have appealed to the Government of India through Union Ministers P Ashok Gajapati Raju and Venkaiah Naidu. We have been informed that Sushma Swaraj has taken it up with Governments of Chile and Argentina and rescue teams have been sent. We have been told that the route that Mastan took was hit by heavy rains after he left,” Dr Dorsannamma said.
“Mastan is unmarried and there is no one place where he stays for more than a fortnight. He is hardly at home. Our mother lives with me in Tirupati where I work but Mastan is always away climbing some mountain or the other in some part of the world. He has climbed most of the mountains in the seven continents. We are desperately praying for his safe return. Two rescue teams launched by his friend Hernan Augusto and Martin Andrez have reached the base camp today and they will launch search operation shortly,” Dr Dorsannamma said. Mastan is an alumnus of IIM, Kolkata and IIT, Kharagpur. He is a product of the Korukonda Sainik School, Vizianagaram, AP.
Many of his mountaineering friends from South America have launched individual or team search and rescue operations on their own after learning that he went missing. His friends from other parts of the world are raising funds to sustain the search operation, it necessary.
His mountaineering friends and admirers have launched a facebook page Rescue Malli Mastan Babu and search teams are continuously updating their whereabouts and progress of search.
Source:: Indian Express
