Akshay (left) and Ashish Miranda. They will be buried together now Akshay has been found.
Akshay (left) and Ashish Miranda. They will be buried together now Akshay has been found.
KEY POINTS:
A red cap on the riverbed led police to the body of Akshay Miranda, a week after he and his brother were buried in an icefall at Fox Glacier.
Searches for the 22-year-old Australian tourist had initially been delayed by dangerous conditions.
Rescuers had been deterred by thecontinued threat of falling ice. But changes in the glacier had made rescuers more hopeful that his body had been released from the ice.
A large portion of ice had been washed away from the glacier, and the levels of the Fox River had slowly dropped over the past two days.
Constable Tony LeSueur of Hokitika reported that a red cap believed to be Akshay's had been found 500m from the glacier. An aerial search of the Fox River found him 10km downstream at 12.30pm yesterday, just below the confluence with the Cook River.
His brother Ashish's body was removed from the icefall hours after the tragedy on Thursday, January 15.
The Miranda family returned to Melbourne this week, expecting the search for Akshay to take some time.
His body will be taken to Christchurch for a post-mortem examination before being released to his family.
Constable LeSueur said the Mirandas were "understandably relieved" that their son had been found. He believed that Ashish's funeral would be delayed until Akshay was reunited with his family.
Ashish, a 24 year-old Boeing aerospace engineer, and Akshay, a student, died on Fox Glacier after crossing safety barriers at the terminal face.
The two boys were Ronnie and Winnie Miranda's only children.
