Five of the six cross-country skiers who went missing in the Swiss Alps this weekend have been found dead, police in the canton of Valais said on Monday, as the search for the last person continued.
The group of skiers, who ranged in age from 21 to 58, had left Zermatt on Saturday morning with the aim of reaching the town of Arolla, near the Matterhorn, later that day.
But as the group passed close to Tete Blanche, a mountain peak between Zermatt and Arolla, the region was engulfed by a brutal storm that left the skiers stranded at an altitude of around 3,500 metres.
A member of the group sent a distress call to emergency services around 5pm on Saturday afternoon, authorities said, but helicopters and rescue teams could not be deployed, such was the intensity of the storm.
On Sunday evening, a team was finally able to reach the mountain by helicopter, police said in a statement, but the skiers had been missing for more than 24 hours.
The rescue contingent quickly came across the bodies of five of the six alpine enthusiasts close to Dent Blanche’s alpine hut.
Five of the six skiers are members of the same family from the Swiss canton of Valais, while the sixth person is from the canton of Fribourg.
Police have not yet released the identities of the deceased skiers.
A photo made available by the Cantonal Police of Valais shows mountain rescuers and helicopters preparing to fly to Mount Tete Blanche in the mountains of the Swiss Alps, near Sion, Switzerland, March 10, 2024
Five cross-country skiers who went missing during a ski trip in Switzerland were found dead overnight as a search continued for the sixth skier
A Swiss Air Force helicopter flies above the high-altitude Tete Blanche pass between Zermatt and Arolla, surrounded by the Swiss Alps
Attorney General of the Canton of Valais Beatrice Pilloud, Chief of Police of the Canton of Valais Christian Varone and Director of the Cantonal Valais Rescue Organization Fredy-Michel Roten attend a police press conference in Sion, Switzerland, on March 11, 2024 after five of six cross-country skiers who went missing in the Swiss Alps this weekend have been found dead
The head of Zermatt’s air rescue service, Anjan Truffer, confirmed that emergency services received a distress signal from one of the skiers around 5:19 pm local time on Saturday.
This, he said, gave rescuers a rugged location on the Col de Tete Blanche, whose summit is 3,000 meters above sea level.
Mr Truffer told a Swiss outlet Look that the weather was so bad that flying in to rescue the skiers was simply not an option.
He said there were “very high winds, heavy snow, high avalanche danger and zero visibility,” which would have left rescuers “dead within two minutes.”
He added that when the group left Zermatt, bad weather conditions were already known and he believes the skiers were more likely to be caught by the storm than hit by an avalanche.
With helicopters unable to brave the storm, five rescuers had tried to reach the rugged site on foot from Zermatt, but they too had to return at an altitude of 3,000 meters due to bad weather, according to local media reports.
This was said by the head of the Swiss Association of Mountain Guides, Pierre Mathey 24 hours By Sunday afternoon, the group might have survived if they had dug a cave in the snow for shelter.
But rescuers discovered late last night that five of the six skiers had died from exposure to the ferocious elements.
The group of skiers, who ranged in age from 21 to 58, had left Zermatt on Saturday morning with the aim of reaching the town of Arolla later that day.
Five of the six skiers are members of the same family, but police have not yet released the identities of the bodies found. File image of Zermatt, Switzerland
Rescue authorities announced on Sunday a search in difficult weather conditions for six missing skiers. The group set off on Saturday on a route between the seaside resort of Zermatt, at the foot of the Matterhorn, and the village of Arolla, near the border with Italy.
“Around 9:20 pm (2020 GMT) it reached the Tete Blanche sector, where it discovered the bodies of five of the six missing people,” a police statement said.
The search for the last skier continued overnight and is still ongoing.
Zermatt is a popular mountain resort known for its skiing, attracting tourists from all over the world.
Tete Blanche in particular is very popular with ski touring enthusiasts attracted by the region’s famous scenery and the challenging terrain it offers.
The region is home to the prized Patrouille des Glaciers race, which sees ski tourers complete a route from Zermatt via Arolla and on to Verbier.
But the area is notoriously difficult to navigate during periods of low visibility, and has proven fatal for even very experienced skiers and mountain climbers.
Nearly five years ago, disaster struck when fourteen members of two ski tourers became disoriented amid a violent storm on treacherous slopes.
The subsequent rescue operation took almost 21 grueling hours before reaching the stranded groups.
Seven people were killed, while the rest were evacuated with varying degrees of injuries.