TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A male solo hiker who went missing after going to climb a mountain in cental Taiwan last Thursday (July 14) was found dead by Taiwan Beast Runners founder, Petr Novotny, a Czech man married to a Taiwanese Indigenous woman, on Tuesday (July 19).
The 42-year-old Taiwan Railway employee and Changhua County man, surnamed Nian (粘), went to climb Malun Mountain (馬崙山) by himself last Thursday, but he went missing on the same day and did not return home, Liberty Times reported.
After his family reported him missing, Taichung City Fire Bureau dispatched personnel to search for Nian, and his family posted a reward of NT$500,000 (US$16,500) online for anyone who was able to locate him.
However, for several days, the search efforts came up empty, so the family on Monday asked Novotny, who has a reputation of finding missing hikers, for assistance in searching for Nian.
After joining in the search for the missing hiker, it took Novotny only four hours on Tuesday to locate Nian’s remains around 11 a.m., per Liberty Times.
Novotny said he got lost during the search and unexpectedly found Nian at the bottom of a waterfall in the Malun River valley.
After Nian went missing, his father and younger sister went to the Guguan fire station every day to wait for search and rescue updates. Even though the news turned out to be tragic, they thanked Novotny for finding their loved one and expressed appreciation to all of those who had participated in the search, per Liberty Times.
Guguan fire station chief Chang Kai-ming (張凱閔) said that Novotny predicted that Nian was somewhere north of the summit of Malun Mountain base where Nian’s cellphone last pinged.
It’s very likely that Nian went down the river valley after getting lost and accidentally fell into the waterfall, Chang said.
Nian's remains were airlifted off the mountain on Wednesday.
