Hourly Update

Bodies of missing Tucson siblings found in Peru

LIMA, Peru - A Peruvian rescue team has found the bodies of three American mountaineers killed during an icy climb high in the Andes mountains, authorities said Monday. A 15-member team located Kristen Yoder, 21, her brother Dustin Yoder, 23, and Brennan Larson, 24, on Sunday afternoon in a 100-foot-deep (30-meter-deep) ice crevice on the Artesonraju peak, said Police Maj. Edmundo Vidal, of the High Mountain Rescue Unit. The bodies were being evacuated Monday in a long descent down the mountain, which was expected to last into the night, Vidal told The Associated Press by telephone from the squad's headquarters in Yungay, about 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of the capital of Lima. The three climbers went missing last week on the glacier-covered mountain, some 17,000 feet (5,200 meters) above sea level in the Cordillera Blanca range in the Andes. Authorities said the three climbers set out on a fairly treacherous route without a guide. Vidal said the cause of the accident was unknown. Perhaps they did not take the proper safety precautions, "or it could have been an avalanche that swept them down," Vidal said. "Given their ages, 21 or 22 years old, I doubt they had a lot of experience." Kathy Yoder - Kristen and Dustin Yoder's mother - of Tucson, thanked Peruvian authorities for helping her search for her children Sunday, shortly after arriving in Yungay. She was not immediately available for comment Monday. Vidal said that three U.S. Embassy counter-drug helicopters were deployed over the weekend to assist in the search, but that they were unable to reach the bodies because of bad weather. A U.S. Embassy official declined to comment, citing confidentiality laws that apply to American citizens hurt or killed outside of U.S. territory.