A 26-year-old dancer who tragically plunged 1000 feet into an active volcano has been found dead after a four-day search.
Juliana Marins, 26, was an experienced traveler and pole dancer from Rio de Janeiro who had been backpacking solo through Asia since February, visiting countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
On June 21, she was hiking with a tour group up Mount Rinjani, a popular but perilous volcano on the island of Lombok, when disaster struck, as reported by the Daily Mail.
While trekking near the crater rim in the early morning hours - around 6:30AM local time - Marins reportedly became fatigued.
According to East Lombok Police spokesperson AKP Nikolas Osman, the group’s guide advised her to rest while the others continued onward. When the guide returned, she had vanished.
“While heading to the summit of Rinjani on the way to the Cemara Tunggal area, the victim experienced fatigue and the guide at that time advised her to rest,” Osman said, via BBC News.
“Then the five guests in the tour group were taken by the guide to continue the journey. However, by the time he returned to fetch her, the Brazilian woman was already missing.”
Tourists heard her screams echoing through the steep terrain and quickly notified authorities.
Drone footage soon confirmed she had survived the fall - plunging an estimated 984 feet - and showed her sitting, injured and in shock, on a slope of grey soil deep inside the crater.
She was alive but trapped, surrounded by treacherous rock faces, with no food, water, or warm clothing. Her only hope rested with emergency responders racing against brutal weather conditions, limited visibility, and hazardous terrain.
By Sunday, rescuers had descended about 300 meters toward her position, but she was no longer visible.
On Monday, she was spotted again - this time even further down the crater.
The conditions proved too difficult for rescuers to advance. Her family posted online that, “They had advanced just 250m down, they had 350m left to reach Juliana, but they retreated.”
Six rescue teams, two helicopters, and equipment - including industrial drills - were deployed.
Yet low visibility and inadequate rope lengths continued to delay progress. Even after three days of attempts, hope remained, bolstered by her earlier drone sightings and audible cries for help.
But today, hope turned to heartbreak.
Rescuers finally reached her location, only to find that she had died from her injuries and prolonged exposure.
"After four days of work, hindered by adverse weather, terrain and visibility conditions in the region, teams from Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency found the body of the Brazilian tourist," Brazil's government said in a statement, per the Independent.
Earlier in the week, false rumors had circulated online claiming Marins had been rescued, prompting her sister, Mariana, to set the record straight.
She said: “We received, with great concern and apprehension, information that the rescue team took food, water and warm clothing to Juliana. This is not true.
"The information we have is that so far they have not been able to reach her, because the rescue ropes were not long enough, in addition to the low visibility.
“All the videos that were made are lies, including the one of the rescue arriving at her. The video was forged to look like that, along with this message associated with it. We even celebrated. It was a shock to find out that it was a lie.”
Two members of Marins’ hiking group later told local media just how extreme the conditions had been that morning.
“It was so cold, it was really, really tough,” one said. Another added: “It was really early, before sunrise, in bad visibility conditions with just a simple lantern to light up the terrain which was difficult and slippery.”
Brazil’s foreign ministry confirmed that the embassy in Jakarta had been monitoring the situation closely, saying: “The ambassador has personally contacted the International Director of the Search and Rescue Agency and the Director of the Indonesian National Disaster Agency, and has received reports from the local authorities on the progress of the work.”
Mount Rinjani, Indonesia’s second-highest volcano at over 12,200 feet, is renowned for its stunning crater lake, Segara Anak, and its dramatic panoramic views.
But the climb can be deadly. In recent years, multiple hikers have died on its unforgiving slopes, including a Portuguese man in 2022 and a Malaysian hiker just last month.