Mountaineers and hikers died on Wednesday and Thursday, particularly around Mont Blanc, where emergency services are calling for people to “postpone plans for mountain outings” due to the persistence of heavy snow.
:quality(50)/2023/07/06/64a68815cd1a7_placeholder-36b69ec8.png)
Published
Reading time: 1 min
:quality(50)/2024/06/28/043-aur-pr-74f02501-667efceae81c7010932425.jpg)
Five climbers or hikers have fallen to their deaths in two days in the Alps, especially in the Mont Blanc massif, French and Italian rescue services announced to AFP on Friday, June 28. A Czech, a Pole and a Taiwanese are among the people who died in the French Alps. Rescue services are calling for vigilance due to the continued heavy snowfall at high altitudes.
The Val d’Aosta alpine rescue team explained to AFP that they intervened on Wednesday with a mountaineer who had fallen on the Miage glacier, at around 2,800 meters above sea level on the southern slope of the Mont Blanc massif. in Italy. Thursday, a climber from Taiwan fell several hundred meters while climbing at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters on the north face of the Aiguille du Midi, according to the high mountain gendarmerie platoon (PGHM) from Chamonix.
A Pole also died in the same circumstances in the Goûter corridor, at an altitude of 3,500 metres, while a Czech hiker left a path and slipped on a grassy slope, at an altitude of more than 2,000 metres in the area of the Col de la Croix du Bonhomme, south of the Mont Blanc massif, according to the PGHM. The high mountain gendarmerie platoon also found, on Friday, the lifeless body of a hiker who probably fell the day before, also slipping on a grassy slope.
The Haute-Savoie prefecture also warned on Friday of stormy disturbances that could cause heavy rainfall, gusts of wind and electrical activity on Saturday. “It would be reasonable to postpone your plans for mountain outings in order to benefit from conditions more conducive to the practice of mountaineering and outdoor activities”she emphasizes.
