The deadly Dakar Rally has been in mourning again with the news that French motorcyclist Pascal Terry had been found dead while competing in this year's race.

The 49-year-old Terry was found dead overnight after the fourth stage of the gruelling spectacle which is taking place for the first time in South America after terrorist threats forced its cancellation last year.

"Officially the result of the autopsy revealed that the French pilot Terry died of pulmonary edema ... which produced cardio-respiratory failure," Julio Acosta, chief of the department of operations of the La Pampa province police, told the official agency Telam.

"The death of the pilot occurred between Monday and yesterday (Tuesday) morning," Acosta said. "He could have been saved, if he had been rescued in time," Acosta said.

Terry had been missing since Sunday's 2nd stage of the race between Santa Rosa and Puerto Madryn.

Acosta said confusion over whether Terry had arrived at the Nequen camp on Sunday delayed the start of the search.

"The search was not started immediately, that same Sunday, because a Terry checked into the Neuquen camp, but it wasn't Pascal but his brother, who is also competing in the rally," Acosta said.

Terry had informed race control on Sunday that his Yamaha had run out of petrol at the 197km mark, but that he had procured some from another competitor.

Organizers later tried to contact him on two occasions, but were unable to get any response.

Search operations were launched the following day, but they were unable to locate Terry until early on Wednesday morning when he was found dead by local police.

"The motorcyclist was found in an area that is very inaccessible with very dense vegetation 15m from his bike," organizers said in a statement.

"He had taken off his helmet and had taken shelter with food and water next to him."

Although the autopsy had been performed, Acosta said Terry's body was still being held by authorities pending completion of the necessary documentation.

"There was a breakdown in the organization's chain of communication between January 4 and 5," said race director Etienne Lavigne.

"Information that he had deployed a distress signal reached Paris on January 4 and we here were not informed before the fifth."

Later on Wednesday, France's Yvan Muller had to pull out of the race after his buggy caught fire in what appeared to be a collision with the lorry of Portugal's Elisabete Jacinto, whose vehicle was on fire at the same place, organizers said. No competitor was injured in the incident.

Chilean police said 2,500 officers would be deployed as authorities expected 250,000 people to line the roads when the race enters the country from Jan 11 to 14. The rally will visit Valparaiso, Coquimbo and Atacama before rejoining Argentina on Jan 14.

Chilean authorities will also have two aircraft at their disposal - a Hercules and a Boeing 737.

Terry was the first fatality at this year's race which started in Buenos Aires on Jan 3 and finishes back in the Argentine capital on Jan 17, but according to an AFP count he is the 51st person involved with the event to die since its inception in 1979.

These include 19 competitors, 17 race personnel, including its founder Thierry Sabine in a helicopter crash in 1986, and at least 15 spectators or others who died due to the high-speed chase of cars, motorcycles and lorries over some of the toughest terrain in the world.

The rally is also hotly contested by ecologists, who blast its effect on the local environment, and has been the target of terrorist threats such as last year which forced organizers to cancel it for the first time.

(AFP via China Daily January 9, 2009)