A young woman died days after falling hundreds of feet off the cliff of an active volcano in Indonesia during a hike.
The family of Juliana Marins, 26, confirmed her death on Tuesday morning.
“Today, the rescue team managed to reach the place where Juliana Marins was,” they said. “With great sadness, we inform you that she did not survive. We remain very grateful for all the prayers, messages of affection and support that we have received.”
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Marins, who was traveling around Southeast Asia from her native Brazil, was climbing Mount Rinjani, on the island of Lombok, with a group and tour guide when she plummeted 1,600 feet into the volcano.
She miraculously survived the slide down the mountain, and teams monitored her through drone footage as they launched rescue efforts. On Saturday, rescuers heard screams for help.
Marins was stuck on the mountain, motionless, for three days as rescuers rushed to retrieve her. But she continued to slip further into the volcano, and initial attempts to reach her via helicopter were called off due to thick fog.
Marins’ family panicked as the teams kept getting closer before suddenly being pulled back.
“A whole day and they advanced only 250 meters below, there were 350 meters left to reach Juliana, and they retreated,” her family said in a statement on Instagram. “Once again! Another day! We need help, we need the rescue to reach Juliana urgently!”
Authorities prepared Tuesday to reach Marins, equipped with 6,500 feet of rope and a helicopter. Muhamad Hariyadi, the head of the search and rescue office in the nearby city, told The New York Times that the operation was “very risky.”
Sadly, Marins did not make it. The young woman’s family, who said they learned about the disaster through social media, said Marins “got very tired” during her hike and asked her guide “to stop for a while.” But the guide decided to continue without her.
She spent about an hour resting alone before slipping sometime around sunrise.
“She didn’t know where to go,” her sister said. “She didn’t know what to do. When the guide came back because he saw that she was taking too long, he saw that she had fallen down there.”
Her family added that Indonesian rescue workers were originally unprepared to reach her. They also accused the Indonesian government of creating a fake video of her rescue and falsely claiming that Marins had been given food and water after 17 hours. Hariyadi denied the claims, adding that rescue efforts were hampered by the rough terrain and poor weather.
Marins’ last hours before her fall were spent in frustration. She and another tourist who had become a friend had completed the first part of the trail but were unable to see the view from the top, which was fogged in.
“We did it for the view,” Marins said in a video that she sent to family and friends.
Her companion on the trail, Italian tourist Federica Matricardi, was also frustrated by the lack of a panorama.
“I met Juliana the day before the trip,” she said. “We were both traveling alone. We walked all the way to the top. It was very difficult.”
Mount Rinjani is Indonesia’s second-highest volcano at 12,000 feet. It is a well-frequented tourist destination and known for its sunrise views and thrilling scenes of the wilderness below. It is spectacularly beautiful, complete with a deep blue volcanic lake sitting within the caldera, about 6,500 feet above sea level.
But despite the stunning sights, it is a deadly place to hike. The journey takes about five days, and Indonesian authorities say trekkers need to be thoroughly prepared in order to ascend. A Malaysian man died after falling down the mountain just last month. In 2022, a Portuguese man also fell to his death and it took authorities four days to retrieve him.
The team looking for Marins said they saw a glimpse of light from a flashlight while searching for the young hiker. But the visibility was poor and the fog prevented them from seeing anything clearly.
Matricardi said Marins had been “living her dream” while backpacking Southeast Asia only days before her death.
