WATCH ABOVE: New Zealand police are working to identify two bodies found near the Kepler Track hiking trail on the South Island, where two young Quebecers went missing in early July. Global’s Elysia Bryan-Baynes reports.
MONTREAL – New Zealand police say they have found a second body near the Kepler Track hiking trail on the South Island where two young Quebecers went missing in early July.
The families of Etienne Lemieux and Louis-Vincent Lessard reported them missing after they failed to return to Canada as planned. They were last seen on July 6, in Queenstown on the South Island.
New Zealand Police in the town of Te Anau said in a statement that search and rescue staff found the second body in the “same area” of avalanche debris where the first body was found earlier in the day.
“Both bodies have now been brought back to Te Anau for formal identification,” police said in a statement, issued Monday local time.
WATCH ABOVE: The body of an unidentified man was spotted during a an aerial search over Fiordland National Park in New Zealand. The area is close to where two missing Quebec students had planned to go hiking.
The 23-year-old industrial design students at Université de Montréal were headed out to Fiordland National Park where they were planning a hike.
New Zealand Police spokesperson Kevin Hawken told Global News over the phone that there has been heavier than normal snow in the country’s South Island this year, and that temperatures have also been colder, so the hikers could have been facing harsh winter conditions.
Acting Senior Sergeant Ian Temple said the first body had been found in Fiordland National Park, 350 metres below the Kepler Track in an area between two huts.
Temple could not ascertain whether the avalanche was recent.
WATCH BELOW: Ian Martin, Te Anau Police, called the avalanche ‘unsurvivable’.
The identities of both bodies have yet to be confirmed. Police said both men’s families have been advised of the latest development.
A Facebook page has been set up in the hopes of locating the missing men.
*With files from Andrew Russell
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