(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-09-15 16:20

URUMQI -- Rescuers have found two bodies of the six Russian canoeists who had been missing in Northwest China's Xinjiang since September 2, sources with the local rescue headquarters said Saturday.

Clothes and canoes abandoned by the missing Russians are found on the upper reaches of the Yurungkax river on Wednesday. [Xinhua]

Four rescuers, including three Russians and a Chinese, crossed the river and found the bodies around 01:20 pm on Saturday under two canoes, spotted earlier at some 58 kilometers north of Omisha, a village at the mid-point of the Yurungkax River in southern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, said Zhang Shaoyun, deputy chief of the rescue headquarters.

The bodies have been transported back to the northern bank of the river, and will later be sent back to Hotan, Zhang said, adding that their identities are yet to be confirmed once they are sent back to Hotan.

A helicopter has taken off from the Hotan airport and headed towards the area to bring back the bodies. Another two military helicopters have arrived at the Hotan airport and will join the search mission on Sunday.

An eight-member group, including five Russians and three Chinese, were parachuted Saturday morning to the search area, where eight Chinese rescuers have already been camped.

The rescuers also took satellite phones, tents, canoes and mountain climbing equipments with them, and will begin a three-day field search for the other four missing Russians, Zhang said.

The six Russian tourists failed to meet their Chinese interpreter in Hotan in southern Xinjiang as planned on September 2 after they began a canoeing trip on the Yurungkax River in mid-August.

China has mobilized about 1,700 soldiers, policemen and local herdsmen to fan out and look for the missing tourists.

A Russian cargo-transport plane arrived in Xinjiang on Tuesday with a 40-Russian search and rescue crew to join the search.

On Wednesday, searchers using telescopes from the helicopter spotted clothes, iron bars used to fix canoes and two red canoes at the upper streams of the river. Another canoe was also spotted about 13 kilometers downstream from the site.

The objects were later confirmed by the two villager guides to be possessions of the missing Russians.

The missing Russians have been identified as Vladimir Smetannikov, Sergey Chernik, Andrey Pautov, Dmitry Tishchenko, Ivan Chernik and Alexander Zverev, with the youngest aged 25 and the oldest 47.