The loved ones of Juliana Marins are outraged after Indonesian search and rescue teams failed to retrieve her from an active volcano before she perished.
The world watched anxiously as officials launched a multi-day attempt to save Marins from her tragic fate before her family announced this week that the efforts were unsuccessful.
“Juliana suffered great negligence on the part of the rescue team,” her family wrote on social media Wednesday. “If the team had reached her within the estimated time of 7 hours, Juliana would still be alive. Juliana deserved much more! Now we are going to seek justice for her, because that is what she deserves! Don’t give up on Juliana!”
Marins, 26, was trapped for four days screaming for help after slipping and plummeting more than 1,600 feet from the crater rim of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia’s second largest volcano. But despite authorities vowing to try and rescue her, Marins family quickly realized the shocking truth: Marins had been left for dead.
Marins’ family claim the search and rescue team created a fake video of her rescue and received false claims that she had been given food and water.
“The Indonesian government is lying, and the embassy is not verifying the facts before informing us,” her sister Marianna said. “She is not receiving supplies.”
Marins’ father was also heartbroken. “The embassy is not offering any support. The Brazilian government, which we’ve tried to contact, is also not helping us,” he told Brazil’s TV Globo. “This is very sad and extremely serious. She is a 26-year-old girl, a Brazilian citizen, and no one—except family and friends—seems to care.”
Marins’ nightmare fall took place Saturday. She had grown “very tired” during her hike, according to her sister, and asked her guide to “stop for a while.”
But the guide ditched Marins anyway, leaving her to fend for herself.
“They continued on, and the guide didn’t stay with her,” her sister said.
Exhausted and weak, Marins was on her own for an hour as her fellow five hikers and guide abandoned her. Sometime around sunrise, she tumbled and fell thousands of feet off the cliff face.
“She didn’t know where to go. She didn’t know what to do,” Marins’ sister said. “When the guide came back because he saw that she was taking too long, he saw that she had fallen down there.”
Miraculously, Marins was “safe, but in shock,” according to witnesses. They were able to hear her screams and see a glimpse of her flashlight.
But horror quickly ensued. Marins’ family was completely left out of the loop, and they only heard about their loved ones’ crisis through social media. Although Indonesian authorities promised to try and retrieve her, Marins’ family quickly grew suspicious.
“We’re living in a nightmare here,” said Marins’ friend.
Authorities were giving updates that were “conflicting, delayed, and often false information.”
The teams’ efforts to save Marins kept getting held up. The visibility was poor, the terrain was rough and the weather conditions were unpredictable. Along with things out of their control, Marins’ family said that the Indonesian authorities were unprepared.
“At first, they tried to reach her with a rope that was shorter than necessary and couldn’t,” Marins’ sister said.
She claimed that local officials released a video depicting a staged rescue. The footage was “not during an actual rescue attempt.”
Marins’ family turned to social media to express their desperation. “Juliana is NEEDING HELP! We don’t know the state of her health!” they wrote. “She still has no water, food or warm clothes for three days!”
Marins sadly slipped further into the volcano as teams rushed to reach her. By Tuesday, it was too late.
“Today, the rescue team managed to reach the place where Juliana Marins was,” her family said on social media. “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.”
The Mount Rinjani National Park administration offered condolences to the family.
“The entire family of the Mount Rinjani National Park Office expresses its deepest condolences on the death of Juliana De Souza Pereira Marins, a Brazilian climber who passed away on the hiking trail in the Mount Rinjani National Park area,” they wrote on social media.
They continued: “We express our deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of the victim. May they receive strength and courage to face this disaster. Rinjani shares our condolences, the nature she loved witnessed her last steps.”
The post Family Furious Over ‘Botched’ Mission to Save Tourist in Volcano appeared first on The Daily Beast.
