BOGOTA – The body of U.S. kayaker and author Mark Hentze was found dead Thursday in the northwestern Colombian province of Antioquia, an official told Efe.

Hentze, who went missing during an excursion on the Santo Domingo River, was found after a major search by soldiers, police and paramedics, Antioquia emergency management chief Pablo Puerta said by telephone from Medellin, the provincial capital.

The body was lying in the Santo Domingo near the town of San Francisco, Puerta said.

Hentze, author of “Colombia Whitewater,” a book about kayaking in the Andean nation, was camped alongside the Santo Domingo with several companions Tuesday night when the river rose suddenly and washed away part of the camp.

The surge “took the kayaker, who apparently must have received a blow to the head from a rock and was missing since then,” Puerta said, adding that authorities are making arrangements to send Hentze’s body back to his home state of Oregon. EFE