Bulgarian PM: China committed to helping find Boyan Petrov, mountaineer missing in Himalayas
The Bulgarian government is in constant contact with the Chinese authorities about a rescue helicopter being provided to help find Boyan Petrov, the mountaineer who has been missing in the Himalayas for several days, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said on May 9.
Borissov and other top government officials held talks at the Cabinet office with China’s ambassador to Bulgaria, Zhang Haizhou, who said that he would do everything he could to ensure assistance was given.
China had been asked to provide a helicopter and it was hoped it could be deployed, given that in recent days there had been strong winds and difficult conditions, Borissov said.
Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva said that just before the weekly Cabinet meeting on May 9, a formal request for assistance had been handed to the Chinese authorities. She said that a big problem was finding a helicopter that could fly at an altitude of more than 5000 metres.
A search team is currently at an altitude of 6100 metres.
Zaharieva said that China was co-operating fully and had sent a team of professional rescuers, who in spite of the bad weather, had stayed on the site for 12 hours so that they could head for camp 2. Reports on May 8 said that Petrov had not been found at camp 1.
Borissov said that his government was in constant contact both with the Chinese and Nepalese authorities.
