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Dramatic struggle through mist and dark to bring back tourist’s body
Soldiers spent a night in treacherous terrain huddled around the body of German tourist Julia Helga, who fell to her death from World’s End trying to take a selfie, after thick mist prevented them from reaching safety.
It took the army almost two days to recover 35-year-old Ms Helga’s body and take it to the police.
Ms Helga met her death at a popular site for tourists – a steep precipice in the Horton Plains National Park surrounded by a wide sweep of spectacular mountain scenery.
On November 11, Julia Helga and a friend, Niketh Rebiya, visited World’s End. Ms. Helga walked to the edge of the precipice to take a photograph of herself against the backdrop of the mountains. As she stood at the edge the ground crumbled away beneath her feet and before her friend’s eyes she tumbled over to her death 900m down the steep 1,200 mountainside.
A guide informed the office at the national park, which contacted Brigadier Ajantha Weerasooriya of the 3rd Sinha Regiment at Nuwara Eliya for help.
A team from the regiment headed by Major Chandana Bowala went into action. Three of the soldiers in the team had helped rescue a Dutch tourist who had fallen off World’s End on February 21, 2015 but who had survived by being caught in the branches of a tree on the slope.
Reaching World’s End at about 10am on November 11, Major Bowala’s team split into two groups, one of about 12 soldiers and a few wildlife department personnel led by the major and the other comprising six men headed by Captain Kanchana Tillekeratne.
“After studying the area we started scaling down at 10.30am,” Major Bowala said.
It took the army almost two days to recover 35-year-old Ms Helga’s body and take it to the police Station.
“We went down quickly. When we got to about 500m we could see her body.
“When we found the body it was about 12.30pm. The doctor who went with us examined her and pronounced her dead.”
There was no way the team could carry the body back up the precipitous mountain slope. The men received instructions to take a circuitous path through Little World’s End up to the Nonpareil Estate and down again to World’s End.
This was a tortuous route. “It was extremely unsafe for the body to be taken on a stretcher,” Major Bowala said. “So we tied it to a log cut from a tree and carried it.”
The weather turned against them. “By 4-5 p.m. we couldn’t even recognise each other as mist gathered,” the major recalled. “It kept on thickening. We carried the body till 10 pm. Then our communications failed.”
At about 10.30pm and, after meeting up with Captain Kanchana’s group, the search party decided it was too dangerous to go any further in the dark.
“All of us spent the night with the body by us. We had only water and a bottle of saline with us,” Major Bowala said.
Major Asitha Ranthilaka of the Nuwara Eliya Sinha Regiment then took up the story. “Brigadier Ajantha Wijesooriya arrived at the Nonpareil Estate with a few officers to help the search party to bring in the body, which weighed about 120kg,” he said. “I was with them and we arrived around midnight.
“As communications failed we used a tractor’s headlights to communicate with Major Bowala and his men. They responded with their torch lights. We called out and asked them to be careful with the body.”
Early on the following day Major Bowala’s men renewed their journey.
At 5.30am they met up with the team headed by Brigadier Wijesooriya. The men were very tired and were relieved to be given food and other essentials before struggling on with their burden. New officers joined the recue party.
“We took up the body again,” Major Ranthilaka said. “At one time we came to a narrow stretch about 80m long where the body could not be carried at all. We had to plan something. We tied ropes across the way and pushed the body along the rope.”
It took the rest of the day for the men to carefully carry Julia Helga’s body through the steep mountains to safety. At about 9.30pm on November 12 they handed the body over to the Officer in Charge of the Samanalawewa police station, Lawrence Fernando.
The weary party reached barracks at 4.30am on November 13.
There have been several fatal falls at World’s End, and calls have been made for a protective fence to be erected.
Most tourists are careful about their safety, said the official in charge of the Horton Plains National Park, Pradeep Kumar.
“We have decided to display notices of warning in a few languages and station a wildlife officer at the site and help the foreigners with guides,” Mr. Kumar said.
On Monday, a guard was deployed at the site.
| No fence will work at World’s End: DWC | |
| By Shaadya Ismail The wildlife Department says it will not put up fences on the World’s End mountain edge where German tourist Julia Elga fell to her death on November 11 but says it needs more staff to deploy at dangerous tourist sites. Department of Wildlife Conservation’s Assistant Director in the Central Province, D.M. Weerasinghe acknowledged the current signboards at World’s End are old and unclear and the department wants to put up new signboards with instructions in Sinhala, Tamil and English, but added, “All this work will take at least one month”. There is a dearth of staff in provincial wildlife departments and a request has been made to the ministry to employ more officers, Mr. Weerasinghe said. “The guides accompanying the tourists also have a responsibility to protect them. Most of them sit idle at our office,” Mr. Weerasinghe said. Mr. Weerasinghe said the department has no intention of putting up fences at World’s End as he believes people will lean over them and this could result on more fatalities. “We want to make the tourists aware of being cautious in such places especially during the rainy season when the soil is loosened and has a higher tendency to break away on the edges,” he said. Official records show almost half a million people visited World’s End in 2017, bringing the Horton Plains National Park Rs. 400 million in income – the third highest revenue received by a national park after Yala and Udawalawa. “I don’t advise my clients to visit risky destinations like World’s End, especially during the rainy season,” T.K.R. Chandana, a private tour guide said. Mr. Chandana, who runs a tour company called Sri Lankan Trip Advisor, pointed out that although millions of rupees are taken from tourists who visit World’s End the authorities had failed to provide them with safety. “There is no fence to protect the tourists from falls,” he said. “It’s not necessary that you lean over the cliff to fall over it by accident. During the rainy season people can even slip off the edge while walking on the narrow track.” Mr. Chandana said all other risky activities such as whitewater-rafting required tourists to sign a letter of acceptance of the risk they are undertaking, and added, “This place has nothing of that sort”.
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