Missing American hiker found dead in South Africa

An American woman who disappeared while hiking on South Africa's Table Mountain has been found dead, officials said.

Brook Cheuvront, a student from North Carolina, was in Cape Town doing an internship at an NGO.

The 20-year-old student was reported missing on Saturday after a tracking app she was using while on a solo hike stopped updating and she could not be reached.

Her body was discovered on Sunday in a mountainous backdrop area, known as Devil's Peak, police told local media.

South African National Parks (SANParks), which manages Table Mountain and other national parks, said the hiker left her room at noon to hike up the mountain.

Her friends called the police when there were no updates on her tracking app, and they could not contact her by phone.

A swift search by rangers, and wilderness search-and-rescue crews was conducted until it was called off late on Saturday.

A helicopter joined the search the following day and helped locate her body on the slopes of the mountain.

"The circumstances around the hiker’s death are still being investigated," SANParks said in a statement.

Police said an autopsy would be conducted to determine the possible cause of death.

SANParks said an investigation into Cheuvront’s death was ongoing.

In a Facebook post, Cheuvront's father said the family was "devastated."

"God help me and us," Steve Cheuvront wrote.

She had been a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was doing an internship at a non-governmental organisation (NG0).

South African authorities have denied there is a problem with crime in Table Mountain National Park, but urged visitors to avoid hiking on their own in a separate post.