The Korovina Incident – 6 Die in Mysterious Circumstances
2nd of August 1993. Lyudmila Korovina leads an expedition on the slopes of the Hamar Daban mountain range. The weather is forecast to be good and she plans to meet her daughter (leading another expedition) at the end of the trip.
Lyudmila’s team are all young and healthy. At 41, she is the oldest of the group by some distance.
They depart Murino, cross a gorge, climb the highest mountain in the range and walk to a plateau between two rivers. It has taken them just two days. The exhausted group makes camp on a slope, with no cover.
The Storm
During the night, the group are battered by a raging thunderstorm and snowfall. The weather conditions have become extremely poor.
The morning of August 5th, Lyudmila makes a decision. Get back down the mountain. Just minutes into the trek, Aleksander Krysin begins to foam at the mouth. Within minutes he is dead. Blood pours from his mouth, ears and nose.
Lyudmila is devastated. Aleksander is a lifelong friend of hers. She orders the rest of the expedition down the mountain, resolving to stay with the body. Within minutes of setting off, Lyudmila calls them back. She too is exhibiting the same symptoms that killed Aleksander.
Panic sets in.
The symptoms begin to appear in all but one of the hikers. All hell breaks loose.
The Survivors Story
Valentina Utochenko, a 17 year old is the only survivor. This is what she told authorities.
Denis began to hide behind the stones and run away, Tatyana beat her head against the stones, Victoria and Timur probably went astray. Lyudmila Ivanovna died of a heart attack
Going into more detail, she expanded.
After some time, two girls fall at once, they start rolling, tearing their clothes, grabbing their throats, the symptoms are the same, the boy is falling behind them. The girl and the guy are left, they decide to leave the most necessary things in backpacks and run down. The girl leaned over her backpack while she laid out, lifts her head, the last guy with the same symptoms rolls on the ground. The night was spent under a stone, on the edge with a forest zone, the trees were falling nearby, like matches. In the morning she rose back
Valentina, drifting in and out of consciousness, follows power lines down the mountain until she reaches the river at the bottom. There she is rescued by tourists kayaking.
Autopsies
Recovering the bodies, autopsies are performed. They reveal telling signs of hypothermia including bruised lungs. They also show protein deficiency, a symptom of under-eating.
But so many questions are left unanswered. Why did they suddenly start foaming and bleeding? They didn’t seek cover in the woodlands surrounding them, why not? Why did they have protein deficiency when Valentina asserts they all ate well? How come she was the only one to survive?
And most telling of all. Why does this keep happening in this area of the world? The Korovina incident is not the only time this has occurred.
Other Incidents
In 1959, the most famous of the other incidents occurred. The Dyatlov Pass incident saw 9 hikers die in the Ural Mountains in strange circumstances. After establishing camp on the slopes of Kholat Syakhi, something made them flee their tents in the middle of the night. 3 were found to have died from physical trauma, one was missing both eyes and another their tongue. The rest died from hypothermia.
In 1974, the Shatayeva Group was attempting to climb Lenin Peak as the first all female expedition. They ascend the mountain on August 5th. Making the trip back all their provisions, including their tents, are blown away in a snow storm. In a last transmission, Shatayeva says:
There are two of us left. We are all out of strength. In 15 to 20 minutes we will be no more.
Elvira Shatayeva
On the surface this seems a straightforward tragedy. Anatoly Ferapontov, a journalist and climber disagrees. On photo’s recovered from the expedition he has this to say:
One of the panoramic shots contains a clearly visible rock with a tea kettle placed on it… the blizzard would have blown it away. As for the torn tents – there had been no blizzards in the area strong enough to tear up a fastened tent. It could only have been torn by a person in a state of hysteria.
Anatoly Ferapontov – The Ascenders
The group had already been plagued by sickness with a member vomiting all day. Another member had perished before the snow storm, having reportedly fallen ill.
Ferapontov also quotes another climber from a nearby group who simply states “It wasn’t how it happened”.
Could it be that something strange happens in these mountains? Or is it just the impact of hypothermia and lack of oxygen?
Sources:
Buryatia Dyatlov Pass (forum.dyatlovpass.com)
Beyond the Dyatlov mystery (rbth.com)
The Hamar-Daban Pass incident (medium.com)
Header Image (pixabay.com)