ASIA PACIFIC

13 Dead After Quake Strikes Malaysian Peak

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Rescuers recovered the bodies of 11 more climbers from Malaysia’s highest peak on Saturday, a day after it was struck by a strong earthquake, raising the total number of dead to 13.
Six people remained missing on 13,435-foot-high Mount Kinabalu, in eastern Sabah State on Borneo, where a magnitude 5.9 earthquake on Friday sent rocks and boulders raining down the trekking routes, trapping dozens of climbers.
“This is a very sad day for Kinabalu,” said Sabah’s tourism minister, Masidi Manjun.
Nine of the bodies found Saturday were flown out by helicopter, while the other two were moved down by foot, said a district police official, Farhan Lee Abdullah.
Most of the other climbers made it down the mountain in the darkness early Saturday, some with broken limbs. One was in a coma.
The two dead climbers found Friday evening were a 30-year-old local guide and a 12-year-old from Singapore, Mr. Farhan said.
The police said earlier Saturday that they were looking for 17 other people, including eight from Singapore and one each from China, the Philippines and Japan. The rest are Malaysians. The nationalities of the 11 dead recovered on Saturday were not immediately known.
About 60 rescuers and four helicopters were searching the mountain, where loose rocks and boulders that fell during the quake blocked part of the main route.
The quake also damaged roads and buildings, including schools and a hospital on Sabah’s west coast, and broke one of the twin rock formations on the mountain known as the “Donkey’s Ears.”
The mountain will be closed for three weeks for maintenance work, and flags will be flown at half-staff in Sabah on Monday to mourn the victims, Mr. Masidi said.
Sabah’s deputy chief minister, Joseph Pairin Kitingan, rebuked a group of 10 foreigners who “showed disrespect to the sacred mountain” by posing naked at the peak last week. He said a special ritual would be conducted later to “appease the mountain spirit.”
The foreigners, who included two Canadians, two Dutch citizens and a German, broke away from their group and stripped naked before taking photographs at the mountain peak on May 30, officials have said.
Five of the tourists are believed to still be in Malaysia and will be barred from leaving pending an investigation related to the offense of gross indecency, the police have said.
A version of this article appears in print on June 7, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: 13 Climbers Dead After Earthquake Strikes Malaysian Peak . Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe