Rome, Jun 11 (AP) Italian rescuers on Saturday located the bodies of seven people, including four Turks and two Lebanese, who died when their helicopter crashed in a heavily forested, mountainous area in north-central Italy during a storm, authorities said.

Air Force Col Alfonso Cipriano, who heads the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and coordinated the search, said rescuers were tipped off to the crash site after a mountain runner reported seeing what he thought was a part of the mangled chopper during an excursion on Mount Cusna on Saturday morning.

Also Read | China Rains: Heavy Rainfall, Floods Affect Over 1.1 Million People in Jiangxi.

Air crews confirmed the site and ground crews initially located five bodies, and then the other two, Cipriano told The Associated Press. The location was in a hard-to-reach valley and the chopper remains were hidden to air rescuers from the lush tree cover, but some branches were broken and burned.

The helicopter disappeared from radar screens Thursday morning as it flew over the province of Modena in the Tuscan–Emilian Apennines. It was carrying seven people, including four Turkish citizens, two Lebanese and the Italian pilot, from Lucca to Treviso to visit a tissue paper production facility.

Also Read | Taliban Rejects Report on Human Rights Violations in Afghanistan.

The Turks on board worked for Turkish industrial group Eczacibasi, which said they were taking part in a trade fair.

Eczacibasi confirmed in a statement with “great pain and sadness” that its director of factories, director of hygienic papers at its Yalova province factory, director of investment projects and production director at its Manisa province factory had died in the crash and relayed their condolences.

The crash site was about 10 kilometres (six miles) from where rescuers initially began searching based on the last cellular pings from the passengers' phones. Cipriano said it might have taken hours more or even days to locate the site had it not been for the runner's tip, given the difficult, lush terrain. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)