Young Irish woman killed in Spain after falling 500 feet while rock climbing

A young Irish woman has died after falling around 500 feet in a popular rock-climbing area near Malaga in southern Spain.

The 21-year-old's body was rescued by emergency services after the alarm was raised just after 7pm yesterday.

A male friend she was with miraculously cheated death by grabbing onto a bush-covered rock that was jutting out from the rest as he fell alongside his climbing companion. He was said to have been in a state of shock when he was rescued alive.

Yesterday evening’s drama occurred near to the village of El Chorro, close to the famous Caminito del Rey pathway. The spot the climbers were in is called the Swiss Sector, next to a hiking area called the Arabic Staircase.

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The mountaineers are understood to have spent the day practicing sport and are thought to have suffered their accident as they made their descent after taking the wrong route by mistake. The survivor has told police they lost their balance and went over the side of a ravine.

Local press initially reported that the victim was of British origin, in line with the information given out earlier by police sources. But this afternoon the Civil Guard, the police force investigating the incident, confirmed she was an Irish national.

A spokesman for the force in Malaga said: “I can confirm the woman who died was an Irish 21-year-old.”

It was not immediately clear whether she was on holiday in the area or lived in Spain, or where in Ireland she came from. The nationality of the man she was with is not yet known.

Last month, a British climber died in the same area. That tragedy occurred on December 11, when a man aged around 20 fell and hurt himself in an area known as Puente del Mono, which translates into English as Monkey Bridge, close to the village of El Chorro. He was knocked unconscious and had gone into cardiac arrest by the time the first emergency responders arrived.

The Brit, who was not named, was pronounced dead after the chopper rescue. The area where that tragedy occurred is also close to the famous Caminito del Rey path, which was once known as the most dangerous walk in the world after it fell into disuse before it was reopened following restoration.

The dead man is understood to have been crossing a protected climbing route called a via ferrata where a metal rail is bolted into the mountain that users can clip into and use as a safety line.

A spokesman for the Guardia Civil in Malaga said after last month’s tragedy: “Members of the specialist Civil Guard Greim mountain rescue team based in Alora near Malaga, supported by a Civil Guard helicopter based in Granada, have rescued the body of a young British man.

“He had suffered a fall while he was crossing a via ferrata in the area known as Monkey Bridge near to El Chorro. When officers reached the man he had gone into cardiac arrest. Despite practicing CPR on him and evacuating him rapidly from the scene by helicopter to a nearby heliport where medical services were waiting, they were only able to confirm his death."

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