Search called off for two Germans missing in French Alps after glacier ice fall

LYON – Rescue services said on Aug 8 they had stopped looking for two German mountaineers who went missing when a giant block of ice broke off a Mont Blanc glacier in the French Alps.

The two climbers, both in their 30s, were presumably swept into a crevasse in the avalanche prompted by the toppling ice, they said.

A French climber was found dead and four people were injured after the massive ice pinnacle – known as a serac – fell on Aug 5.

“The search is over,” said Mr Jean Ailhaud, deputy prosecutor in the Alpine town of Bonneville.

“Unfortunately, there is no longer any point. They were most probably hurled into the crevasse which is now covered in 10m of snow,” he told AFP.

This meant the two climbers had probably died of asphyxiation or hypothermia, he said.

“It would be suicidal to try and climb down. The glacier will one day return the bodies,” the deputy prosecutor added.

The two Germans had sheltered for the night in a mountain hut on the north face of Mont Blanc, Western Europe’s highest mountain, when the serac broke off the glacier in the early hours of Aug 5 at an altitude of 4,100m.

About 15 people were ascending the mountain at the time.

A rescue team with helicopters and dogs searching for survivors found the body of a 57-year-old Frenchman. A man and a woman in their 40s, also French, were taken to hospital.

A 58-year-old Spanish national and his teenage son had fractures when they were hit by falling ice.

All other climbers present at the time of the accident were accounted for, except the two Germans.

Climate change has been blamed for falling rocks in the French Alps because of a thaw in permafrost – the year-round ice found at high altitude that binds together giant slabs of rock.

Retreating glaciers, which are melting under the effect of higher temperatures, are also leaving the peaks more vulnerable. AFP