A possible sighting of two missing US mountain climbers was reported in southwest China's Sichuan Province on Friday.

Yue Penggui, an employee of the Chengdu branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua Friday that he saw two foreigners, a man and a woman, on Dec. 10 on the Gazi Mountain highway in the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan.

Yue, who saw pictures of the missing climbers in Thursday's newspapers, believes they were Charlie Fowler, 52, a well-known climber, guide and photographer, and Christine Boskoff, 39, a highly experienced female climber.

Yue said "the foreign man looked like an actor in an American film that I watched recently, so I remembered his face."

He added that he was sure about the date since Dec. 9 was his wife's the birthday.

Rescuers immediately began checking out the lead because up till now they had no idea whether the climbers were in Sichuan or had crossed into neighboring Yunnan Province.

An official with the public security bureau of the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture's Deqin County, Yunnan Province, said they have received orders on Dec. 15 from their higher-up, asking them to search the two missing American mountain climbers.

The county public security bureau then dispatched more than 20 policemen every day, hunting for the whereabouts of the two along the highway leading to Tibet.

A policewoman said so far they had acquired no clue but they "will never give up their efforts before the two are found."

Gao Min, a staff of the Sichuan Mountaineering Association, said the association would inform the US consulate general in Chengdu on the new clue and discussed about further search for the climbers.

Sichuan newspapers on Thursday reported that the two US citizens were missing. According to the reports, the US consulate general offered a reward of 30,000 yuan (3,800 US dollars) for valid clues on the missing climbers.

The government of Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture on Friday published missing person notices in Chinese and English in all the newspapers under its jurisdiction calling for any information about the climbers and will publish notices in Tibetan on Saturday, Guo Changping, a senior Ganzi media official told Xinhua.

The missing person notices said the US pair were likely in Ganzi prefecture of Sichuan or in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan.

A Deng, tourism head in Deqin county, Diqing prefecture, said local police have searched all the hostels, restaurants and villages along highways and found not signs of the two.

The Deqin county government has also posted missing person notices all over.

The two US climbers were last heard from in early November, and missed their return flights to the United States on Dec. 7.

It is reported that Boskoff said in an e-mail on Nov. 7 to her adventure travel company Mountain Madness "I'm having a great time and love the country, mountains and people here,"

A day later in the last e-mail to the company Boskoff wrote "we'll be leaving tomorrow, and we'll be back in Internet contact in two weeks."

Charlie Fowler has been a mountain climber for 35 years and is an expert on climbing in southwestern China, while Christine Boskoff is among the top female high-altitude climbers in the world who has ascended six of the world's peaks over 7,800 meters, including Mount Qomolangma.

They should have registered their routes with local authorities as required by Chinese regulations. However, they did not do that, which caused their whereabouts a total mystery, according to Secretary General of the Sichuan Mountaineering Association Lin Li.

Liu Jian, a well-known Chinese mountain climber who has scaled all the highest peaks in the world's seven continents, said he always registered routes and even the color and pattern of clothes with local authorities in foreign countries before mountain climbing, so that rescuers could find him in case of danger.

(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2006)