A Brazilian tourist who fell while hiking near the opening of an active volcano in Indonesia has been found dead after a difficult rescue operation that lasted several days. Juliana Marins, 26, was hiking Mount Rinjani on Lombok Island when she slipped and fell from a cliff on Saturday morning.
As per the BBC, Marins was climbing Indonesia’s second-tallest volcano with five friends and a tour guide at around 6:30 in the morning local time when the accident happened. The group was walking along a steep trail that goes around the volcano’s opening when she fell. One member of the group told Brazilian media that the ground was slippery, the climb was hard, and they could not see well because of bad weather.
Rescue teams first heard Marins screaming for help on Saturday and drone footage showed her alive and moving around in grey volcanic soil far below the hiking path. But when rescuers went down 300 meters to reach her, they could not find her and she did not answer when they called out. By Sunday morning, new drone footage showed she was no longer in the same place. Park officials said thick fog had made rescue efforts harder and affected the use of thermal drones. Search teams found her again on Monday, but saw she had fallen even further down the cliff.
Could anything have been done to prevent this?
The rescue operation had 50 people working in very difficult conditions. Mohammad Syafii, head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, said that the steep ground and heavy fog made the mission difficult.
Rescuers finally reached Marins’ body on Tuesday after going down 600 meters into the ravine, but bad weather at first stopped them from bringing her remains back. Just like another incident where a woman became trapped 400 feet down a gaping canyon, this case showed how dangerous mountain areas can be for hikers.
The autopsy results, released by Indonesian coroners, showed that Marins died from bleeding inside her body caused by damage to her organs and broken bones from hitting something hard. Medical experts guessed that death happened around 20 minutes after the bleeding started. The report said she died from injuries she received during the fall, with no signs that she died from being too cold.
— laerte (@brenolaerte) June 22, 2025
A brasileira Juliana Marins, caiu de uma altura de 300m em uma trilha no vulcão na Indonésia. Está viva, mas gravemente ferida, aguardando resgate há mais de 16 horas! A Prefeitura de Niterói cobra ação e acompanha o caso com a Embaixada.VAMOS DAR RT!
pic.twitter.com/tAJoitIboO
Her family said they were worried about the fact that the trail stayed open after she fell. Her sister Marianna told Brazilian outlet Fantastico that Marins had gotten very tired during the hike and asked the guide to stop for a while, but the guide kept going without her. The family also said both Indonesian and Brazilian officials did not act fast enough during the rescue operation and did not give them clear information.
Juliana Marins, brasileira de 26 anos, está desaparecida desde sexta-feira (20), no vulcão Rinjani, na Indonésia, após cair 300 metros. Tudo o que sabemos até agora
— Astronomiaum (@astronomiaum) June 23, 2025pic.twitter.com/mhlXknW94B
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that the government would pay for bringing Marins’ body back to Brazil. He signed a new law to make sure the federal government would cover the costs so her family and friends could say goodbye the right way. Marins, who worked in advertising and was also a dancer from Niteroi near Rio de Janeiro, had been traveling across Southeast Asia since February, visiting countries like the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand before coming to Indonesia.
Mount Rinjani, which stands at 3,726 meters tall, brings in thousands of visitors each year. But several people have died trying to climb it in recent years, including a Malaysian tourist just last month. Mountain climbing deaths happen often, as seen in cases like a hiker who fell to his death after untying his safety rope to take a selfie on a different mountain peak.
