Members of the Protección Civil de Nerja rescued two women and a man who had managed to get lost in the El Canal area of the natural park behind the town. El Canal is similar to La Junta de los Ríos (Otíva) in its steep-side gully characteristics.

This group of hikers had decided to go on an excursion, making their way up Río Chillar and everything had gone well until they decided to follow the water channel back home – night had fallen and they were completely lost, so they phoned 112 to inform the emergency services of their situation.

It didn’t take long to find them, as they made the phone call just after nightfall (22.00h +/-) and the Protección Civil had managed to locate them just after 23.00h. None of the excursionists had thought to take a torch along, just in case, and had been trying to find their way by using their mobile phone screens to illuminate their surroundings.

Everybody was found to be in good health, except one of the women who had had a slight fall, causing bruising but little else.

The rescuers took the excursionists back to where they had parked their car, at the Río Chillar quarry, as nobody required medical treatment. The two women are aged 31 and the man, 27 and two are from Málaga and the third, Alhaurín de la Torre.

(News: Nerja, Axarquia, Costa de Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)