Authorities in Puebla have confirmed the death of a man who led an expedition to climb the Pico de Orizaba volcano last Saturday. The death of a woman was previously announced, while another man remains missing on the dormant volcano.
The Puebla Civil Protection agency said on the X social media platform on Wednesday morning that search and rescue teams had located the body of Luis Flores Gómez.
He was the guide for a group of 11 mountaineers from Jalisco who scaled Mexico’s largest peak in cold weather last Saturday.
The death of a woman identified as Jessica N. was confirmed Monday.
The Civil Protection agency said that Flores’ body was found 4,600 meters above sea level on Tuesday night. Rescuers were unable to retrieve it due to a lack of light, but will bring the body off the mountain on Wednesday.
They will also continue searching for a mountaineer who remains missing five days after the expedition began. He has been identified as José Luis Díaz.
Led by Flores, the group of mountaineers reportedly lost their way due to bad weather when they were descending the 5,636-meter-high Pico de Orizaba last Saturday. Nine members of the group made it off the volcano on Sunday, although some of them had symptoms of dehydration and the early stages of hypothermia.
That left three of the group unaccounted for, two of whom have now been confirmed to have died.
The fatalities come just six months after four mountaineers fell to their death on Pico de Orizaba, which straddles the states of Puebla and Veracruz.
Also known as Citlaltépetl, the stratovolcano is the third highest mountain peak in North America after Denali (Mount McKinley) in Alaska and Mount Logan in Canada.
