Tejal Somvanshi
A 26-year-old Brazilian tourist has died after falling from a cliff near the crater of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia’s second-highest volcano. Juliana Marins’ body was found on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, following a four-day rescue operation hampered by treacherous terrain, fog, and bad weather.
Marins disappeared around 6:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, June 21, while hiking with a small group along a trail overlooking the volcano’s famous crater lake on Lombok Island. Her sister told Brazilian TV that Marins had become tired during the steep climb and had asked her guide to stop.
“They continued on, and the guide didn’t stay with her,” Marins’ sister Marianna told Brazilian TV station Fantástico. According to Marianna, her sister spent about an hour resting alone before she slipped and fell at sunrise.
Drone footage on Saturday initially showed Marins conscious and moving on gray volcanic soil far below the hiking path. Rescuers reported hearing her screams for help, raising hopes for her survival.
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“When we detected her using a drone, she was not moving,” Muhammad Hariyadi, head of Lombok’s Mataram Search and Rescue Office, told news agencies. The challenging terrain complicated rescue efforts as “soft sand in the area made it difficult to retrieve her using ropes.”
Indonesian national search and rescue agency head Mohammad Syafii confirmed rescuers found Marins unresponsive at a depth of 600 meters (approximately 1,970 feet). “One of the rescuers managed to reach the victim at the depth of 600 meters, upon checking there were no signs of life,” he told reporters.
Throughout the rescue attempt, Marins’ family voiced growing frustration with what they perceived as delays in the operation. They created an Instagram account that gained over 1.5 million followers, posting urgent pleas for help.
“A whole day and they advanced only 250 meters below, there were 350 meters left to reach Juliana, and they retreated,” her family wrote on Instagram. “We need help, we need the rescue to reach Juliana urgently!”
The Brazilian foreign ministry confirmed her death in a statement: “The Brazilian government informs, with deep sadness, the death of the Brazilian tourist Juliana Marins, who had fallen from a cliff surrounding the trail near the crater of Mount Rinjani.”
In total, 50 people participated in the search and rescue operation, using thermal drones, mountaineering gear, and helicopters. However, thick fog, steep terrain, and worsening weather conditions repeatedly forced rescuers to retreat.
Indonesian Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni announced that the Mount Rinjani hiking trail would be closed to ease the evacuation effort and out of respect to Marins and her family.
This isn’t the first fatal accident on Mount Rinjani. Several tourists have died in accidents while hiking the volcano in recent years, including a Malaysian tourist who fell off a cliff last month, according to local media reports.
Marins, who worked as a publicist in Niterói near Rio de Janeiro, had been backpacking across Southeast Asia, with recent stops in Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines before arriving in Indonesia.
Bad weather has delayed the retrieval of her body, with efforts scheduled to resume on Wednesday morning, June 25.
The Brazilian embassy in Jakarta facilitated contact between the family and the tour company while embassy staff were dispatched to Lombok to monitor the situation.
