'Bikini Climber' social media star dies after mountain fall

"Bikini climber" Wu, 36, fell down a ravine and seriously injured herself while hiking in Yushan National Park in Taiwan. (Photo: Gigi Wu via Facebook)

TAIPEI: A hiker who became famous on social media for taking selfies on top of mountains dressed in a bikini has died after falling down a ravine in Taiwan's Yushan national park.

Her lifeless body was  located by a helicopter on Monday and searchers hampered by bad weather were on Wednesday still trying to retrieve her body.

Gigi Wu -- dubbed the "Bikini Climber" by fans -- used a satellite phone on Saturday to tell friends she had fallen down a ravine in Taiwan's Yushan national park and badly injured herself.

"The weather conditions in the mountains are not good, we have asked our rescuers to move the body to a more open space and after the weather clears we will make a request for a helicopter to bring the body down," Lin Cheng-yi, from the Nantou County Fire and Rescue Services, told reporters.

Officials said Wu had told friends she was unable to move the lower half of her body after a fall of some 20-30 metres but was able to give her coordinates.

She is the latest in a string of social media adventure seekers who have met an untimely end.

Last October, the bodies of an Indian couple were found at the bottom of a popular overlook in California's Yosemite National Park after hikers alerted officials to their camera equipment at the top of the cliff.

New Taipei City native Wu, 36, built up a sizeable social media following through photos of herself at the top of mountains dressed in bikinis.

She usually wore hiking clothes to scale the mountains, only changing into a bikini once she reached the top.

In an interview with local channel FTV last year, she said she had scaled more than 100 peaks in four years.

"I put on a bikini in each one of the 100 mountains. I only have around 97 bikinis so I accidentally repeated some," she said.

When asked why she did it, she replied: "It just looks so beautiful, what's not to like?"

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Vocabulary

  • coordinate: one of a set of numbers that give the exact position of something on a map or graph - พิกัด, คู่อันดับซึ่งแสดงตำแหน่งของจุดในระนาบ
  • hamper: to stop someone or something from making progress or developing; to hinder - ขัดขวาง, เป็นอุปสรรค
  • lifeless (adj): dead or appearing to be dead - ที่ตาย, ที่ไม่มีลมหายใจ
  • ravine (noun): a deep, very narrow valley with steep sides - หุบเขาลึก, ห้วยลึก
  • retrieve (verb): to get something back, especially something that is not easy to find - ได้กลับคืนมา
  • scale: to climb to or over the top of a high steep object such as a mountain or a wall -
  • untimely: happening unexpectedly early or at a time which is not suitable - ไม่ถูกกาละเทศะ, ไม่ถูกจังหวะ, ไม่เหมาะแก่โอกาส

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