Wellington - Two Japanese climbers were stranded 3,700 metres up New Zealand's highest mountain on Wednesday as police waited for the weather to lift before launching a rescue attempt. Severe winds again prevented a helicopter from lifting the pair off Mount Cook, where they have been stuck for a week, but it was able to drop them an emergency pack with survival gear, food, cooking equipment and a radio.
The men are holed up in a tent on a ridge near the summit of the mountain, in the Southern Alps, unable to move because of gale force winds, driving rain and low clouds.
Police said forecasts indicated it could be Friday afternoon before conditions improved enough for a rescue attempt.
The stranded climbers were named as Kiyoshi Ikenouchi, 49, a mountain guide, and Hideaki Nara, 51, both from Tokyo.
At least one of them, who left the tent to retrieve the survival pack, is alive, but did not respond to repeated calls on the radio by a Japanese-speaking operator after the airdrop.
A police spokesman said the radio could have been damaged in the drop or they could be in a poor reception area.
The survival pack was designed in November 1982 when one was dropped to veteran New Zealand mountaineers Mark Inglis and Philip Doole, who were trapped in the same place on the mountain. The pack helped them survive for 13 days.
The Japanese pair began their climb in fine conditions last Wednesday and were reported overdue when they failed to arrive back at the Mount Cook village on Saturday as scheduled after the weather worsened.
