Foreign woman who had been lost on Mount Cheolma found safe at home

A foreign woman who had been lost on Mount Cheolma in Namyangju, Gyeonggi, since Friday night has been found safe at her home in Seoul, police said on Sunday.

The missing hiker, a Hong Kong national, was found at her residence in Gangbuk District, northern Seoul, at 10:51 a.m. on Sunday, three days after she first called for help from the mountain, according to the Namyangju Police Precinct. 

The woman dialed emergency services at 9:06 p.m. on Friday to report she had lost the trail at what she described in halting English only as “iron horse.”

Authorities took that as a reference to Cheolma, the Sino-Korean term for iron horse and the name of the mountain, and launched a full-scale search in Jinjeop-eup, Namyangju.

In her final call between 5 a.m. and 5:50 a.m. on Saturday, she said that she was still wandering the mountain and that her phone had only 7 percent battery left. Her phone went dead soon after, making it impossible to track her location.

Police reviewed Saturday's CCTV footage and confirmed that she had descended the mountain on her own and traveled home. Officers tracked her down via neighborhood canvassing on Sunday. She confirmed during questioning that she had been the one to make the distress call, and her phone number matched the report.

With the woman accounted for and no signs of a crime, the police plan to close the case.

BY CHO MUN-GYU [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]