GEORGE TOWN, Nov 7 ― They hike up Penang Hill every weekend, taking around two hours to reach the top, and this morning was no different, except this time, they carried  extra equipment to help people stranded up there.

The group of about 25 hikers from V2 Kembara and Anak Hutan volunteered to hike up the hill together with the rescue team from the fire and rescue department, Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) and police at about 9am this morning.

"Actually, somebody tagged me on Facebook about people stranded on Penang Hill. We had already started to organise a group to go up and help when we heard the authorities were also going up today,” said Jerry Ooi, one of the volunteers.

Carrying backpacks and trekking poles, the group met up with the rescue team this morning for the climb up Penang Hill.

"We were initially supposed to help bring all of them down but later the authorities told us that  they were sending a helicopter to airlift them down so only about 12 hiked down with us as they didn’t want to wait for the helicopter,” Ooi said.

The group of hikers along with the FRU team escorted 12 people down the hill using one of the hill’s most popular hiking track in Air Itam.

The group arrived at about 3.30pm at the base of the track, near the Penang Hill lower train station, with the 12 looking exhausted from their ordeal.

The hikers and the FRU personnel (in orange) helping the 12 people stranded on Penang Hill to hike down.

The 12 were part of a group of 40 people, including residents and workers, who were stranded on the hill since the storm on Saturday night.

About 36 of them were staying at the Bellevue Hotel and others were workers and residents who lived up there.

The Fire and Rescue Department helicopter airlifted about 30 of them in three trips, landing at the FRU base in Air Itam.

One of those rescued by helicopter was Fathiah Ghazali, 36, and her two-year-old toddler.

"We live up there as my husband works in the mosque but our food supply was running out fast… so we had to break into my sister’s shop there to look for canned food,” she said of her ordeal.

She said she started sending out messages to her friends and family asking for help as her toddler’s milk supply was also running out.

"It took a long time for the supplies to reach us as they had to hike up so we decided to come down until everything is back to normal,” she said.