Tourist falls to death while trying to take photo on top of Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu near Cusco, Peru

A German tourist fell to his death while reportedly trying to pose for a photo on top of Machu Picchu, Peru this week. The tourist, identified as 51-year-old Oliver Park, was in an off-limits area of the World Heritage Site in Peru Wednesday when he lost his balance, Fox News reported. Officials said Park fell about 130 feet, according to the BBC. By the time first responders reached him, he was dead.
“He asked a man who was there to take a photo of him,” Guillermo Mestas, a Peruvian tourist, told local TV station Canal N., according to The Washington Post. “The man came over to take the photo and in the moment he was handing him the camera, he lost his balance and fell.”
A conflicting report described Park as trying to jump in the air for the photo when he fell. The man’s death is just the latest in a series of tragedies involving tourists, worldwide. Earlier this week, a South Korean tourist was posing for a photo, also in Peru, when he fell 1,600 feet off the Amazon’s Gocta waterfall, Fox News reported. Last month, a Yellowstone tourist is believed to have died after walking off a boardwalk and falling into a boiling hot spring. In September, a Japanese tourist died after falling down a staircase at the Taj Mahal in India while trying to take a photo with a friend.