PERULIMA, Peru (AFP) — Peruvian police pulled a South Korean tourist dead from under a waterfall in the Amazon jungle, days after he fell in while taking a photo of himself, police said Monday.
The man, 28-year-old Kim Jongyeob, slipped and fell 500 meters (1,640 feet) under the waterfall in northeastern Peru last Wednesday, a local police official said.
“The tourist was found dead, submerged seven meters deep in the lake where into which the Gocta waterfall runs,” the official, who asked not to be named, told AFP by telephone.
“He wanted to take a self-portrait at the waterfall but while he was looking for a good place to take it, he fell.”
Divers and mountain rescue teams were called in to recover the man’s body.
The Korean consul in Peru, Chang Dongyool, told reporters that Kim’s uncle would transport the body to Lima and incinerate it there before taking it back to South Korea.
Last week a 51-year-old German tourist plunged 200 meters (650 feet) to his death while posing for a photo on a mountainside at Peru’s top archeological site, Machu Picchu, police said.
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