A ‘happy’ climb that turned deadly
Mt Kinabalu guide recounts climber’s joy before a ‘river of rocks’ buried him
Thank you. I am very happy.” That’s what mountain guide Moidin Sempot remembers the lone Japanese climber saying as they reached the summit of Mt Kinabalu, Malaysia’s highest mountain, before an earthquake struck barely 30 minutes later, killing him and 15 others last Friday.
His body was found three days later. Based on police records, he was the only Japanese who registered for the climb that day: 29-year-old Masahiro Ozaki. Besides the 16 deaths, two are still missing in the worst tragedy ever to occur on Mt Kinabalu, in Sabah state in Borneo Island.
“I told him, ‘You are very lucky to climb today. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it’s cloudy. But today, the weather is very beautiful.’ He replied, ‘OK. Thank you. I am very happy,’” Mr Moidin said.
Mr Moidin, 56, met Ozaki on Thursday, the first day of the climb up the 4,095m mountain. Mr Moidin was leading six climbers who, besides Ozaki, consisted of two Danes, two Brits and one Chinese national. “He was very strong, pretty fast too, when he started,” Mr Moidin said.
While the rest of the group departed from Timpohon Gate, the starting point, at 9am local time (8am Bangkok time), Ozaki was late and began ascending at 11am, reaching the Laban Rata base camp, 6.5km from Timpohon and at a height of 3,270m, in less than three hours.
Along the way, Ozaki, who could speak a little English, said he was from Tokyo and unmarried.
They left Laban Rata before 3am on Friday for the 2km hike to the summit. While the trek up from Timpohon to Laban Rata was a journey from a tropical mountain forest to sub-alpine forest and scrub, from Laban Rata to the peak was a trek along a bare granite massif. The group reached the peak at 6.45am. The sun rose along the way, painting the clouds in various hues of purple, red and gold.
Ozaki took a lot of pictures, said Mr Moidin. Soon they began their descent. At the Sayat-Sayat checkpoint, at about 3,700m, two members of the group took a break while Ozaki and the rest proceeded to go down.
“He told me he wanted to go down first because he said he was slower, and so the rest could catch up with him,” Mr Moidin said, adding initially he saw Ozaki holding on to the rope that guided climbers down one of the steepest parts of the summit area. After a while, he was out of sight.
At 7.15am, the 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck. “We saw rocks falling. Some as huge as a car,” he said. “[We] were thrown off balance by the tremor. We decided to climb back up to Sayat-Sayat instead as I know below us was not safe anymore.”
Instead of waiting for the rescue party, Mr Moidin, who has 33 years of experience as a Mt Kinabalu guide, brought his wards down.
“I know which is the safer route they could take. The rope had already been washed away by the rocks. The route was still dangerous but I didn’t want to hang around in case of more earthquakes. I knew we had a 50-50 chance of survival,” he said.
As they descended, Mr Moidin saw bodies strewn around. There were aftershocks but the team made it to the Timpohon Gate by 1pm on Friday. The last survivor stumbled out of Timpohon after 2am on Saturday.
According to a rescuer, Ozaki was found above ground but his body was hit by large objects. A total of 187 climbers from 16 countries, and 107 mountain guides, park rangers and lodge workers, were up on the mountain that fateful day.
All made it out alive except 18. The 16 dead include six 12-year-olds from a Singapore school on a field excursion. The two still missing are a student and a teacher from the same school.
According to Kinabalu National Park Director Jamili Nais, most fatalities occurred because they were swept by a “river of rocks” at the “most dangerous zone” in the 6.5-7km area.
At the Travellers Light Backpackers’ Lodge in Kota Kinabalu three small pouches with belongings await an owner who will never return.