A Taiwanese tourist stuck on Uluru on Friday has been winched to safety.
Police said the man had been rescued from the crevice and taken to a helicopter landing site just before 6pm. They said it was a race against time to remove the man before dark.
The man became trapped in a crevice on Thursday afternoon and had to spend the night on top of the central Australian landmark as it was too dangerous to attempt a night rescue, police said.
“It looks like he climbed down into an area he could not get out of,” a police spokeswoman said.
The tourist, who became lodged at the bottom of the 20-metre-deep crevice, was reported to have a broken leg and facial injuries.
Emergency service workers had spent Thursday night with the man as temperatures dropped to about 5C. They began the rescue attempt again on Friday morning.
The Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is jointly managed by traditional owners the Anangu people and Parks Australia.
Despite the fact that in 2010 park management announced it would begin working towards closing the climb for cultural, safety and environmental reasons, it remains open.
Each year, thousands of climbers have led to erosion in parts of Uluru and there is concern they are impacting the area’s rich diversity of arid flora and fauna species.
A sign at the base of the rock structure reads: “Our traditional Law teaches us the proper way to behave. We ask you to respect our Law by not climbing Uluru.”
Although tour operators are required to inform their guests of the cultural insensitivity surrounding climb, some continue to feature it in travel packages.
According to a 2010 report released by management, the park receives on average 350,000 visitors per year. The percentage of visitors who choose to climb has been dropping, from 52% in 1995 to 17% in 2013.
The Parks Australia website also advises visitors against climbing Uluru and warns that more than 35 people have died trying to do so.
The site quotes Kunmanara, a traditional owner of the area, who says: “That’s a really important sacred thing that you are climbing … you shouldn’t climb. We are obliged by Tjukurpa to say.”
