The climbers were heading for western Europe’s highest peak in perfect weather conditions. But suddenly a block of glacier ice broke free and sparked a giant avalanche, killing eight of them in what a mountain guide described as ”a scene from the apocalypse.”
”I saw a wall of ice coming towards us and then we were carried 200m,” said Italian Marco Delfini, one of the survivors of the tragedy that struck before dawn Sunday on the Mont Blanc range on the French-Italian border.
Another survivor who fractured his ankle said his group was three-quarters of the way up the Mont Blanc du Tacul, one of the peaks in the range, when the guide suddenly shouted: ”Run fast! Run fast!”
”There was absolutely no noise, it was very disturbing. We only had time to swerve to the right before being mowed down,” Nicolas Duquesne said from hospital in the nearby town of Sallanches.
The 30-year-old Frenchman — one of eight survivors who were injured in the avalanche — said he had to ”swim” through the snow to escape death.
By Monday the eight missing climbers — five Austrians, one of whom was a guide, and three Swiss — had still not been found, but rescuers said there was no hope of finding any of them alive.
Three helicopters, dozens of rescuers and sniffer dogs had searched frantically on Sunday but found only bags, socks, ice picks and other personal belongings.
The search was called off late Sunday for fear of new avalanches.
On Monday rescuers were due to fly over the area where they disappeared to try to spot signs of them in the Alpine snow.
”If the snow melts, and this might not happen because we’re close to the end of the summer, it’s possible that the bodies will come to the surface. If that happens we’ll go and get them,” said a police official.
The Mont Blanc range is popular with hikers but every year claims numerous lives.
This summer season more than 30 people have died in the French Alps, most of them near Mont Blanc, and a further 60 have perished in the Italian and Swiss Alps.
Mountain guide Goulven Cuzon was one of the rescuers who tried vainly to find the missing climbers on Sunday.
He had spent the night in a mountain shelter and with his two Russian clients had woken at 12.50am GMT to begin the ascent of the climb of the 4 250m high Mont Blanc du Tacul.
Climbers of high mountains such as Mont Blanc du Tacul often begin their ascent hours before dawn, because the snow is firmer and easier to walk on and also to arrive at the summit when the light is at its best.
”It was a very, very fine morning. I went outside to see what the weather was like and I saw a line of lights moving up the mountain,” said the 41-year-old climber.
”I put on my harness, I was ready to go. I looked again and I asked myself ‘Am I dreaming?’ Then I understood” that they had been buried by the snow.
The avalanche, a massive wall of snow 200m long and 50m wide, struck at an altitude of 3 600m, police said.
Cuzon joined the early morning rescue operation.
”When I say scene from the apocalypse it’s because there were a lot of injured, it was cold, it was dark, it was stressful.”
”We found the first casualty who had a broken leg and after that we found a guide who had three broken vertebrae. People with hypothermia, people in panic, people who had been through something horrific.”
He found one group of climbers roped together, who had been swept down the mountain by the avalanche. ”They were white from head to foot but they were okay, they went back to the shelter,” said Cuzon. – AFP
