A hiker climbing Hong Kong’s highest peak has been missing since Thursday afternoon after calling police for help, with temperatures on the mountain falling below freezing.
Police on Friday morning said they had received the call at around 4pm the day before from a Mandarin-speaking man, who said he was hiking on Tai Mo Shan but could no longer continue because of the cold weather.
Emergency services launched a search and rescue operation involving 40 officers from the police force, Fire Services Department, Government Flying Service and Civil Aid Service. But the man was still missing as of Friday night, police said.
The search will resume on Saturday morning.
The Transport Department announced at around 9am that “due to [an] emergency incident, all vehicles cannot enter Tai Mo Shan Road via Route Twisk”.
According to the Hong Kong Observatory, an intense winter monsoon and a band of clouds covering the coast of Guangdong province have brought the coldest temperatures of the season so far.
The mercury dropped to a minimum of 8.6 degrees Celsius (47.5 Fahrenheit) in urban areas on Friday morning, the lowest this winter.
Temperatures on the 957-metre (3,140-feet) Tai Mo Shan hovered around freezing, falling to as low as -1.6 degrees in the early morning – the sixth-lowest on record in the area.
As of 10am, the mercury had reached about 2.5 degrees on the mountain.
Physical health expert Dr Lobo Louie Hung-tak of the Education University of Hong Kong said cold weather would increase the risks for hiking, especially among those who went alone, as environmental factors as well as abilities of individuals and equipment could affect hikers’ performance.
“When it is cold, we increase our energy expenditure as our bodies need extra energy to maintain our core temperature,” he said.
“Therefore, we will lose more heat energy during the cold weather, which means we will have early fatigue.”
He urged people to better go hiking with others in winter, and called on those who insisted on hiking alone to only stay on the trail and avoid short cuts to keep safe.
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