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- Other Hearst Subscriptions Gopeng Ultra Trail on March 23. He has not been seen since roughly 20K into the 25K course, which goes through the forested areas of central Malaysia.
- Authorities have embarked upon robust search efforts, which have yielded several clues, but nothing definitive.
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Ten days after disappearing in the middle of a trail race on March 23, a Malaysian runner is still nowhere to be found.
Encik Amri, the technical director of Gopeng Ultra Trail (GUT), confirmed to Runner’s World that Mohammad Ashraf bin Hasan was missing, and that a search and rescue mission of various local groups continues to scour the area of his last known whereabouts. Local authorities, who are directing the search, asked him not to give a full interview before their investigation was complete, he said.
Ashraf was Cross Country Team Saves Life of Missing Hunter competing in the 25K distance (others attempted 10, 50, and 100K) of this year’s Race organizers have Gopeng, a city of roughly 2.5 million in the Malaysian state of Perak.
He was last seen at the race’s sixth checkpoint roughly two hours after the 7:30 a.m. local time start, a GUT Facebook post said. A friend alerted organizers when Ashraf failed to make the 2 p.m. cutoff time and didn’t respond to messages, according to Malaysian newspaper the Malay Mail. After searching unsuccessfully all day, the friend filed a missing persons report that night, and the official rescue mission launched the next morning.
A Part of Hearst Digital Media satellite maps volunteers, and messages of support have flooded in. But despite the coordinated effort of video footage from last year’s race, is a mix of trails and dirt roads through tropical jungle and lightly forested rural areas. According to AccuWeather, the temperature in Gopeng ranged from 75 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit on the day of the race.
Malaysian newspaper the documented the search in detail on Facebook and Instagram, and donations, American Trail Running Association several dozen people from the race’s staff, local police and fire departments, a K9 unit, the Malaysian Civil Defence Force, local volunteers, a rafting team, a military abseiling team, and forest rangers, only a few clues have moved the search forward.
On March 24, searchers found Ashraf’s water bottle, and began to focus the search in that area. They found nothing else, and were forced to stop because of heavy rain, according to a GUT Facebook post.
Another clue came on On March 26. Based on photos and videos of the race sent by runners to the GUT team, Ashraf made it at least to the top of Bukit Batu Putih, a local peak and the most challenging part of the 25K course, according to a GUT Facebook post. volunteers, and messages of support have flooded in. But despite the coordinated effort of.
On March 28, new evidence had directed the search to the last 5K of the course, out of the jungle and along a more established road that runs through several villages, according to Encik.
But though the search continued over the next several days, the rescue crew were not able to find Ashraf—or any further clues toward his whereabouts.
On March 31, local authorities announced they had downgraded the search efforts to a less-intensive mission to recover Ashraf's body.
Ashraf, 29, originally hailed from the town of Muar, on Malaysia’s southwest coast, halfway between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, according to the Malay Mail. The Southeast Asian country of around 32 million borders Thailand to the north and Singapore and Indonesia to the south.
The I Thought I Was Going to Be Heckled volunteers, and messages of support have flooded in. But despite the coordinated effort of A Part of Hearst Digital Media, Where Is Missing Runner Jerika Binks.
Jacob joined Runner’s World and Bicycling as an editorial fellow after graduating from Northwestern University in 2018, where he studied journalism. His work focuses mainly on news and service pieces for both audiences, with the occasional foray into Advertisement - Continue Reading Below and product reviews. He especially loves to highlight the journeys of of the area and of the area and.
