Rescuers trying to find two missing Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife field rangers found the first signs on Sunday that they may be in for a recovery operation when sniffer dogs alerted them to something in the water.
On Friday the pair went missing after paddling a confiscated dugout canoe, loaded with illegal nets, in Nhlabane Lake, midway between St Lucia and Richards Bay.
After a paddle thought to have been used by one of the rangers was found, sniffer dogs alerted their handlers to something in the water.
But conditions did not allow divers to enter Nhlabane Lake, Lieutenant Jack Haskins, of the Pietermaritzburg SAPS K9 Search and Rescue unit, said on Sunday.
“The water is black, there is no visibility and we cannot see anything in the water,” he said.
“It is too dangerous for the divers with the hippos and crocodiles, debris and long weeds.”
If they were not in the water, the rangers would most likely have been found by now, said Haskins.
Searches were conducted throughout the weekend by the National Search and Rescue Institute (NSRI), Ezemvelo and police
.NSRI’s Richards Bay Station commander, Dorian Robertson, said it appeared that on Friday morning, four rangers went on a foot patrol operation on the lake bank, north of the lake.
They came across a small dugout canoe with fishing nets on board, but no people were found in the remote and wild area.
“We believe they made a decision to confiscate the canoe, which may be suspected to have been used for illegal fishing,” Robertson said.
“Two of the rangers set off in an attempt to paddle the canoe across the lake to the south side of it, where they would have been able to recover the canoe at the Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) water pump station.”
This meant they would have had to travel more than 5km across the lake.
Robertson said the other two rangers then set off on foot to walk around the lake with plans to meet their colleagues at the pump station.
But when they arrived, there was no sign of the two who had paddled the canoe, and they raised the alarm.
A team of rangers began scouring the shoreline of the 20km-long lake, which is 5km wide.
As night fell, the operation was hampered by rain, and with no moonlight, RBM staff set up lighting equipment, while Transnet National Ports Authority used its search and rescue helicopter.
“It is feared that if the dug-out canoe had capsized on the water, taking into account the conditions that the search parties faced, it may have been impossible to spot the upturned dugout canoe on the water in those conditions,” Robertson said.
Haskins said that the search would continue today, but they were also waiting for the bodies to surface. - Daily News