"The helicopter cannot land in the wooded area where the missing people were spotted," the local emergencies center in said. "Another helicopter fitted with special equipment to lift them out is on its way to the scene from [the regional center of] Vladivostok."
Three men left the village of Peretychikha in taiga March 4 with a woman who needed medical attention, but their two trucks became trapped in snowdrifts during snowstorms that hit the region in early March, paralyzing much of the territory.
Rescuers on board an Mi-8 helicopter spotted the group at about 7 a.m. Moscow time (4 a.m. GMT) Wednesday.
Snowstorms, the most powerful in more than 100 years of weather observations, disrupted transportation and power supplies in several areas in the region's south, leaving some 2,000 people without electricity in early March, the regional authorities said.
