ARGENTINA: An Andean hiker has found items that are an eerie reminder of the extraordinary story of how victims of a plane crash survived 33 years ago. Seamus Mirodan reports from Buenos Aires
One of 16 survivors of a 1972 Andes plane crash, whose flesh-eating ordeal was made famous by the Piers Paul Read book Alive and film of the same name, has been reunited with his wallet and jacket - 32 years after leaving them in the mountain snows.
Eduardo Strauch, who was forced to feed on the corpses of fellow passengers who had already passed away in order to survive 72 days in high mountain snows, received the aged wallet, driver's licence and other personal items on Wednesday, a week after they were found in the Andes by a mountain climber.
Now a 57-year-old architect and father of five, Mr Strauch was aboard a flight with fellow rugby players, relatives and friends when their plane crashed high in the Andes on October 12th, 1972.
A Mexican hiker chanced upon the jacket and the wallet, which contained faded dollar bills, a driver's licence and other personal items mere metres from the site where the plane went down on a flight that was to have taken Uruguay's Old Christian rugby team to a series of friendly matches in Santiago, Chile.
The 16 survivors were forced to do the unthinkable when, on the brink of starvation, they decided to eat flesh from the bodies of their friends and relatives who died in the crash or survived but fell prey to the unforgiving mountain conditions. Those who could not bring themselves to eat human flesh perished on the mountain.
The survivors' story was made famous by the book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, by Piers Paul Read and later brought to an even wider audience by the critically acclaimed and highly popular film simply entitled Alive.
The rescue of the 16 came after two survivors decided to brave the elements and set out on foot through mountain snows to find help on the Chilean side of the mountains, some of the highest of the Andean chain.
As his items were given to him this week, Mr Strauch said: "This is just a feeling that's impossible to describe. It's incredible, amazing that this episode continues to speak for itself."
That someone had stumbled upon his possessions, Mr Strauch deemed yet "another miracle inside a miracle", especially since he and other survivors "visited the site only two years ago when there was little snow and found absolutely nothing".
He said the return of his possessions brought back memories of the fight for survival and added that to see these small items again three decades after the event "is just incredible".
Alvaro Mangino, another Uruguayan who survived the flight, happened to be in western Argentina at the time Mr Strauch's belongings were found by the Mexican hiker. A local hotelier took receipt of the items and passed them on to Mr Mangino to deliver to Mr Strauch on his return to Montevideo.
Mr Mangino, who has climbed to the site no fewer than seven times in the years since the accident, expressed his own amazement at the find.
"This mountain keeps on shocking us and keeps on giving us back something," Mr Mangino said.
The items also included a passport, an identity document, old sunglasses frames and 13 worn dollar bills now faded nearly grey.