Bodies of two Spanish hikers found in Nepal, leaving four still missing

Police have located the bodies of 53 people, including two Spaniards, who were killed in the devastating earthquake that hit Nepal on April 25.

Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo, who was in India at the time of the quake and personally led the evacuation effort, had already quelled any hope of finding six Spaniards who had been missing since that day.

The two Spanish citizens found this weekend are a man and a woman, whose bodies “will soon be taken by helicopter to Kathmandu,” said Satendra Yadav, deputy police chief in the Rasuwa district, which encompasses Langtang Valley, a popular destination for climbers.

“We are trying to obtain more details about the deceased,” said Yadav. Another four Spaniards are still believed to be in the area, along with around 150 other people who were hiking in Langtang when the earth tremor produced an avalanche of ice, rocks and mud.

The six Spaniards who were in the area were Mixel Pizarro from Aragón, Isabel Ortiz from Cantabria, and the Asturian friends Sabino Fernández, Jesús Monteirín, Egidio García and Ángel Hernández Muñiz.

A group of Spanish civil guards who flew to Nepal in early May to help with the rescue operation described the scene as “straight out of Dante’s Inferno.”

The 7.8-degree magnitude earthquake was Nepal’s worst in 80 years, and was followed by a strong aftershock on May 11. The latest official records show a death toll of 8,712 and another 22,220 injured.