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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Special Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Geologists rescued
By Amira IbrahimA scientific mission turned into a fight for survival when three men ventured into the desert of southern Egypt to collect rocks for research.
The trip, by a geologist and his two team members, should have lasted only a few hours, but instead the three were trapped in the desert for days.
The drama began on Sunday 11 April, when Khaled Abdel-Fattah, a geologist at Qena University, accompanied by two assistants, went into the nearby desert. At midday, their car got stuck in the sand. "We tried to move it but failed," Abdel-Fattah said. "When darkness fell, we spent the night beside the car."
The men's absence was not discovered by the university until 13 April, the day after the national holiday of Shamm El-Nessim. Authorities at the university alerted Qena security department, which immediately launched a wide-scale search. Four teams of eight men each, led by local Ababda tribesmen who are familiar with the terrain, were mobilised, backed up by a military helicopter.
That afternoon, the helicopter spotted the car. At 6am the next morning, a rescue team found Abdel-Fattah and the driver near the car.
"We had left the car on 12 April, hoping to reach a water station located in the area," Abdel-Fattah said. "We slept in the desert, after failing to cross Abu Gad mountain. The following day, the driver and I returned to the car, worried that we may get lost in the desert. But Said Gad Tleihi, the other member of the team, had disappeared."
"The rescue team continued the search for Tleihi," said Major-General Ahmed Nagui, secretary-general of Qena Governorate, who had accompanied the searchers. "We followed his tracks from the mountain to the valley, where we lost them again."
The rescue team and the helicopter scoured 30 square kilometres of desert, but there was no sign of Tleihi.
At 4pm last Friday, shortly before the rescue operation was to be called off, Tleihi was found lying on the ground and, as he explained, "waiting to die".
"I slept during the day and walked at night, guided by the lights of the water station at a distance," Tleihi later said. "I had to cross a wide depression. For two days, I kept walking in circles and could not get out of the depression."
Tleihi was rushed to the Qena general hospital for an examination. He had accompanied many geologists on their trips into the desert, because of his knowledge of the routes. "For geologists, the desert is a treasure trove," Professor Hisham Mansour, dean of Qena University's Faculty of Science, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
"Geologists are used to going on one-day missions in the desert for research. They often venture up to 40 kilometres into the desert. But accidents happen."
He said the university has reacted by introducing new regulations for these missions. "A mission into the desert should consist of two cars, equipped with a radio and rescue equipment," Mansour said. "Until we get the required vehicles and equipment, all geological missions into the desert will be suspended."
