Five climbers or hikers have suffered fatal falls in two days in the Alps, especially in the Mont Blanc massif, we learned on Friday from French and Italian rescue services, who are calling for vigilance due to the persistence of heavy snowfall at altitude.
A Czech, a Pole and a Taiwanese are among those killed in the French Alps, and one victim was reported on the Italian side, according to these sources. The Val d’Aosta Alpine rescue service explained to AFP that it intervened on Wednesday with a climber who had fallen on the Miage glacier, at an altitude of around 2,800 metres on the southern slope of the Mont Blanc massif, in Italy. “The alarm was raised by his companions who saw him slide into a ravine. The climber died, his comrades are unharmed,” they specified.
On Thursday shortly before 7:30 a.m., a climber from Taiwan, “aged around thirty,” 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 Chamonix High Mountain Gendarmerie Platoon (PGHM). Later, at the end of the day around 6 p.m., a Polish national of the same age group died in the same circumstances in the Couloir du Goûter at an altitude of 3,500 meters, according to the same source.
Also on Thursday, a Czech hiker went off a trail and slipped on a grassy slope, at an altitude of over 2,000 metres in the area of the Col de la Croix du Bonhomme, south of the Mont Blanc massif, according to Captain Stéphane Narbaud, second in command of the PGHM of Savoie. On Friday, his teams found in Haute-Maurienne the lifeless body of a hiker who probably fell the day before, also slipping on a grassy slope, he added.
“We have seen a lot of accidents in recent days because there has been heavy snowfall at altitude this winter and there is still a significant amount of snow at over 2,000 metres,” explains the captain. “It blocks some of the trails. When trying to get around them, people get lost and slip,” he continues, calling for “extra care this year”. 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 mountaineering and outdoor activities,” it stresses.
