KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Rescuers recovered the bodies of 11 more climbers from Malaysia’s highest peak Saturday, a day after it was struck by a strong earthquake, bringing 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 brought down by foot, said 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 and one in a coma.
The two dead retrieved Friday evening were a 30-year-old local guide and a 12-year-old Singaporean student, Farhan said.
Police said earlier Saturday that they were looking for 17 other people, including eight Singaporeans and one each from China, the Philippines and Japan. The rest are Malaysians. The nationalities of the 11 dead recovered Saturday were not immediately clear.
About 60 rescuers and four helicopters were combing the mountain.
The quake also damaged roads and buildings, including schools and a hospital on Sabah’s west coast. It also broke one of the twin rock formations 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, Masidi said.
