Rescuers are searching for the missing group of climbers on Elbrus.

The rescue team is surveying the southern slope of Mount Elbrus in search of a group of climbers who did not make contact at the scheduled time. The group consists of at least eight people.

The operation to find the group of climbers began on the evening of August 17. The message that the participants of the ascent on Elbrus had not made contact was received by rescuers at 21:00 Moscow time.

Fourteen rescuers from the Elbrus high-altitude search and rescue team are participating in the operation, searching for the climbers on the southern slope of the mountain. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the missing group consists of eight people. "The route was registered," the agency said in a message on its official page on VKontakte.

Sources from the Baza and Mash channels, in turn, claim that the group has nine people - adults and one 14-year-old teenager.

The group was led by an experienced climber from Sevastopol, Vasily Rzhanov, who is an instructor for the Russian Federation of Sports Tourism and has made ascents on Elbrus multiple times. "The preparation of the participants for the current ascent began several months ago," writes the Telegram channel SHOT.

"Caucasian Knot" reported that at the end of July, during an ascent on Elbrus, five climbers from Bosnia and Herzegovina and one resident of the Krasnodar region died. In mid-July, during the descent from Elbrus, a 48-year-old climber from Malaysia died, who was in an unregistered group with two guides.

On July 10, two climbers fell into the Adyl-su gorge in Kabardino-Balkaria while ascending Mount Via-tau. One died, the other sustained multiple injuries. Prior to that, on July 7, a climber from St. Petersburg died suddenly on Elbrus.

Elbrus is a two-peaked cone of an extinct volcano, with both peaks exceeding 5.6 kilometers in height, according to a report from "Caucasian Knot" "Elbrus - the patriarch of the Caucasus Mountains".