Man, 10-year-old girl safe and well after going missing in deep snow at Thredbo
Emergency services are desperately attempting to rescue a man and his 10-year-old daughter who went missing in deep snow at the Thredbo ski resort.
A NSW Police spokesman told ABC they were being assessed by paramedics, but had been located and were safe and well.
They no longer had their boards, and had very little battery left on their mobile phone.
They were found in back country in a popular snow play area at Dead Horse Gap, outside of the ski resort.
A reporter told The Ben Fordham Show the temperature in the area was -3 degrees Celsius at the top station, with a wind chill of -12 degrees Celsius.
Winds were blowing at up to 70km/h earlier in the day.
The father reportedly called NSW Ambulance shortly before 3pm, saying the pair were lost in deep snow without their snowboards and his phone was almost out of battery.
Thredbo has had heavy snowfalls of more than a metre in recent days as southern Australia was hit by a polar blast, with more snow forecast to come.
NSW Ambulance had two vehicles on scene, and a spokesperson earlier said the pair were believed lost in “deep but lightly packed snow”.
NSW Ambulance Superintendent Jordan Emery told 2GB radio the search operation was a “mammoth task” due to the amount of snow that has fallen on Monday afternoon.
Mr Emery said the area where the pair went missing was very rugged terrain.
“We’re really hopeful that we’ll be able to locate them before the sun sets this evening,” he said.
A spokesman for Thredbo resort told the ABC the pair were believed to have been snowboarding in back country outside the resort’s boundaries.
-more to come
