A Chinese volunteer rescue team has found a body, suspected to be the one of two US climbers who have been missing since early November, on a mountain in southwest China.

The body was found around 5:00 PM Wednesday at an altitude of 5,300 meters on Genyen Mountain in Sichuan Province, a source with the Sichuan Mountaineering Association said Wednesday night.

Climbers Charlie Fowler, 52, and Christine Boskoff, 39, have not been heard from since November and failed to catch their return flights home on Dec. 7.

"Most of the upper part of the body was buried in snow, but the legs were exposed," said the source.

Rescuers could not properly identify the body in the dark and cold, he said.

The rescue team had returned to camp at a scenic zone on Genyen Mountain at an altitude of 4,200 meters. They would confirm the identify of the body in the next few days, according to the source.

The discovery was confirmed by a US rescue team, the source said.

The 10-member team that found the body comprised eight volunteers from Chinese mountain climbing clubs, a representative of the United States, and a local guide.

"The association has asked the sports bureau and local mountaineering association of Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture to evacuate nearly 200 people around the camp and close off the roads to Genyen Mountain," said Gao Min, deputy secretary general of the association.

The luggage of the two US missing climbers was found by rescuers at a remote village in Lamaya Town near Genyen Mountain during door-to-door inquiries by rescuers last Friday.

The 6,204-meter Genyen Mountain is the third highest peak in Sichuan and local Tibetans believe it is sacred.

(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2006)