CHAMONIX, France — An avalanche swept down a major summit in the Mont Blanc range before dawn today, leaving eight climbers missing and presumed dead along a trail often used to reach western Europe’s highest peak.
“There’s no chance of finding anyone alive,” French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said while visiting the area.
The avalanche was set off around 3 a.m. by the fall of a massive block of ice on the Mont Blanc du Tacul, one of the peaks in the Mont Blanc range, at an altitude of some 11,800 feet, the Haute-Savoie regional government office said in a statement.
Authorities deployed a vast search mission, involving four helicopters, dozens of rescue workers, doctors, Alpine guides and sniffer dogs, said the statement.
The regional government at first said 10 climbers — including five Austrians and three Swiss — were believed missing, but that figure was lowered to eight after two Italians thought to be among them had already returned to Italy.
Seven people were hospitalized — not eight as originally indicated — and of those, only three were staying overnight. Most suffered broken bones or sprains, and a guide who was injured was treated for a broken vertebra but has no risk of paralysis, rescue team leader Jean-Yves Moracchini said.
The search was suspended because of the risk that the warm weather could melt other ice blocks and trigger another slide, the statement and local police and government officials said.
Mont Blanc du Tacul is on one of the routes that climbers often use to reach the top of Mont Blanc, which is western Europe’s biggest mountain at 15,780 feet.
The famed mountain that straddles the French-Italian border draws thousands of visitors each year, and the area is known for hiking, skiing and mountaineering.
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