A group of schoolchildren who were reported to be missing in the Brecon Beacons during a Duke of Edinburgh exercise have all been found safe and well, mountain rescuers confirmed.
A major search and rescue operation was launched in one of the wildest and remotest areas of Britain after concerns were raised that the 26 children had vanished in dreadful weather conditions.
Three mountain rescue teams, police and ambulance crews – plus a coastguard helicopter – were sent to the Brecon Beacons in south Wales at around 1pm on Wednesday.
Journalists and film crews also raced to the national park, which is used as a training and testing ground by the SAS, believing that a major disaster was unfolding.
By 5pm the search was over. Emergency services said the children were safe and sound. The headteacher of the children’s school said, in fact, they had not been missing at all but the alarm had been raised after two of them fell ill.
The teenagers from St Albans, Hertfordshire, were on the hills in low cloud and as torrential rain swept in.
Andrew Evans, of Western Beacons Mountain Search and Rescue, said the sort of incident was not uncommon with groups doing their Duke of Edinburgh award. “We located them and brought them all safely back,” he added. “They have been taken to the nearby town of Ystradgynlais where they were staying. They’ve all been checked out by medics as precaution and we’ve been assured that they are all safe and OK.”
A Dyfed-Powys police spokesperson said: “We are pleased to confirm that following the search and rescue operation on the Brecon Beacons this afternoon, all 26 members of the party involved have been accounted for. It is also very pleasing that no one was injured, but as a precaution they are being taken to hospital to be checked. The mountain rescue team and the coastguard’s helicopter crew are to be thanked for this successful search and rescue operation.”
The party is believed to have been in the area around Llyn y Fan Fach, a dammed lake in the Black Mountain in the Brecon Beacons national park.
Jonathan Gillespie, headmaster of St Albans school in Hertfordshire, said the pupils were quickly found after friends of the unwell pair phoned police.
Gillespie said: “Our pupils are trained to contact the police if anything happens to them, which they did after two members of our school began to feel unwell.
“The police then contacted mountain rescue teams who were able to quickly locate the pupils, who used a mobile phone app which gives a grid reference to show where they were.
“No one has been missing at any stage despite quite misleading reports contrary to that. We have 46 pupils over there in total working in small groups and all safe and sound. All the pupils have been taken off the mountain and are now safe.”
• This article was amended on 30 June 2016. An editing error led an earlier version to say that Llyn y Fan Fach was in the Black Mountains. This has been corrected to say the Black Mountain range, a different area in the Brecon Beacons national park.
