Twenty-one people are dead after running a mountain ultramarathon in northwestern China amid severe weather, including hail, freezing rain, and severe winds.
More than 700 people participated in a rescue mission overnight on Saturday. The rescuers confirmed that 151 people out of the 172 participants were safe. Those who died suffered from physical discomfort and the drop in temperature, according to Xinhua News Agency.
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The race was more than 60 miles and began on Saturday morning local time at the Yellow River Stone Forest tourist site in Baiyin city in the Gansu province. The race had runners racing on a narrow mountain path at an altitude reaching 6,500 to 9,800 feet.
“We express deep condolences and sympathy to the families of the victims and the injured,” Baiyin city Mayor Zhang Xuchen, who organized the event, said.
The course had been held four times before, one runner said, who posted about his experience online, according to the Associated Press. The man wrote that runners were not dressed for cold weather but rather were wearing short-sleeved tops.
“I ran two kilometers before the starting gun fired to warm up … But the troublesome thing was, after running these 2 kilometers, my body still had not heated up,” the runner said on his WeChat account.
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Some of the runners who needed rescue had fallen into deep mountain crevices. CCTV footage showed rescuers in winter jackets searching with flashlights at night along steep hills and narrow paths.
