(Lyon) Two German mountaineers were “wanted” on Monday in the Mont Blanc massif, where one person was killed and four injured in the fall of a serac, an enormous block of ice detached from a glacier, a “seasonal and unpredictable” phenomenon.
The two Germans, aged 30 and 39, “spent the night at the Cosmiques refuge, located at the foot of Mont-Blanc du Tacul”, where the accident occurred on the night of Sunday to Monday. Since then, “they have been missing”, declared the Chamonix High Mountain Gendarmerie Platoon (PGHM).
The serac fell around 3 a.m. on the north face of Tacul, “at an altitude of around 4,100 meters,” while a total of 15 people were engaged in the ascent of Mont Blanc, according to the prefecture of Haute-Savoie, a department in the south-east of France.
As soon as the alert was raised, major relief efforts were mobilised with helicopters, two dog teams and PGHM rescuers and firefighters.
Upon their arrival, they discovered on the surface a 57-year-old Frenchman who had died after “cardio-respiratory arrest”, said the Bonneville prosecutor’s office, which has opened an investigation.
A 42-year-old man, who is suffering from a “cerebral hemorrhage”, was transferred to Annecy hospital and placed in intensive care. A 40-year-old woman, injured in the lungs, remains hospitalized in Sallanches.
The two were in the same rope team as the deceased and had just left the Cosmiques refuge with him after a short night.
The other two injured are a 58-year-old father and his 17-year-old son, who were hit by “ice blocks” and suffered “a fracture to the neck” and “a fracture to an ankle”, according to the prosecution.
Their nationality has not been disclosed.
Searches to find possible additional victims were suspended on Monday “late morning”: “we cannot afford to search anywhere, the surface is too large and it is too exposed” to the risk of possible new rock falls, explained the PGHM.
To locate the Germans, who are not answering their cell phones, “administrative searches” are underway, including by “geolocation,” he added. At this stage, “we cannot say that they are below, we cannot say that they are not there,” according to this source.
” Good conditions “
A rope team of four people, one of three people and two of two people were also on the route at the time of the serac fall, but escaped unharmed.
Once the injured people had been rescued, their members “were brought down by helicopter and interviewed” by the Chamonix gendarmerie brigade, according to the Bonneville prosecutor’s office.
“There were no professionals in the rope teams, they were amateur rope teams,” he said.
“According to the initial information gathered, the origin of the triggering of the serac fall would be natural,” the prefecture also announced.
“It’s not a surprise. The seracs are falling, it’s completely seasonal, but it’s unpredictable,” according to the PGHM of Chamonix, questioned by AFP, according to which “the conditions for climbing were good.”
The prefect of Haute-Savoie, Yves le Breton, wished to “extend his sincere condolences to the victim’s relatives and his thoughts to those involved in this serac fall”.
In August 2008, eight climbers, five Austrian and three Swiss, died following an avalanche caused by a serac fall on the north face of Tacul.
The fall of a huge block from the Marmolada glacier, the highest peak in the Italian Alps, left eleven dead in July 2022.