Five cross-country skiers were found dead on a mountaintop in the Swiss Alps, Valais regional police said Monday. A sixth person in the ski tour group remains missing and the search for them continues despite extreme weather conditions.
The group of six skiers, including five family members from Valais and an individual from Fribourg, set off on Saturday morning to ski from Zermatt, the famed resort town at the base of the Matterhorn, to the village of Arolla — a section of the gruelling “Haute Route” alpine trail.
On Sunday evening, the bodies of five of the party members were found at approximately 3,500 metres above sea level at Tête Blanche (White Head) ridge, one of the highest peaks of the Haute Route.
When the six skiers set off on Saturday, the conditions in the area were “relatively good,” but the weather quickly deteriorated, Christian Varone, commander of Valais regional police, told a news conference in Sion, Switzerland.
The ages of the people in the group range from 21 to 58, Varone said, without providing names or further details.
Police learned of the skiers in distress after a family member became worried when the party did not arrive in Arolla by the afternoon. At 4 p.m. local time, the family member called authorities, according to a police timeline of events.
Just over an hour later, one of the missing skiers managed to call emergency services, allowing rescuers to pinpoint the group’s location in the Tête Blanche area.
Shortly after 6 p.m. that evening, a rescue crew set off from Zermatt in search of the skiers. The rescuers managed to reach an altitude of 3,000 metres but were forced to turn back due to the extreme wind and cold. At 9 p.m., a second search effort was suspended due to avalanche risk.
During the night, rescuers kept watch for a possible break in the weather to resume the search.
That opportunity didn’t come until 6:30 p.m. the next day when a team of two rescuers, a doctor and a police officer trained for mountain operations were airlifted to Dent Blanche, a nearby mountain.
After a three-hour hike, the team reached the location of the missing ski group and found five of the six people with no signs of life.
Swiss prosecutors say an investigation is underway into the exact circumstances of their deaths.
The search for the sixth person continues, police say.
The search was interrupted at 1 a.m. Monday due to “deteriorating conditions,” but picked up again at 8:30 a.m.
Police have also not revealed the identity of the remaining missing skier.
“Unfortunately this region is accustomed to tragedies like this,” commander Varone told reporters on Monday, alluding to the deaths of seven hikers — six Italians and a Bulgarian — in the region in 2018. The hikers were caught in a storm overnight and froze to death.
— With files from The Associated Press
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