A North Carolina student has been found dead a day after she went missing while hiking a mountain in South Africa, authorities and her “devastated” family said Monday.
Brook Cheuvront, 20, was reported missing Saturday from Table Mountain in Cape Town — where she was studying — after she stopped responding to friends and couldn’t be located on a tracking app, a rep for SANPark, which manages the mountain, told CBS News.
Rangers and trail runners searched until late Saturday, when it was no longer practical to continue, spokesperson JP Louw said.
An aircraft joined the search Sunday — and found the American student’s body.
“She was recovered,” confirmed her dad, Steve Cheuvront, who had planned to fly in from North Carolina to help look for his daughter.
“We are devastated. God help me and us,” he wrote.
The cause of Cheuvront’s death is unclear and an investigation has been opened, according to authorities.
Cheuvront was a sophomore at the University of North Carolina who was in South Africa for an internship at the University of Cape Town, CBS affiliate WNCN reported.
The 20-year-old from of Newland, North Carolina, was also the 2022 valedictorian at Avery County High School, where she was a track runner.
SANParks said suggestions that there are “growing concerns of crime” at Table Mountain are “speculative and may cause unnecessary alarm which undermines worthy and successful efforts,” in a social media post on Monday.