Four Italian and Korean climbers found dead on Mont Blanc

Four climbers from Italy and South Korea were found dead on Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps, on Tuesday after being missing for three days due to bad weather, the French prefecture said.

The mountaineers “died of exhaustion,” the Haute-Savoie prefecture told the AFP news agency. The rescue workers who finally arrived at the scene of the accident were the first to find the two Koreans near the two Italians.

A helicopter from the Annecy-based mountain police (PGHM) was able to land at around 1:30 p.m. (11:30 GMT) and found the bodies between 100 and 200 meters (330-660 feet) from the summit.

“The bodies were brought down from the mountain” and “the families were informed,” the Chamonix branch of the PGHM said.

A group of Italian mountain rescuers reached the summit on foot after setting out in the morning but did not find the bodies, police added.

Police were informed late Saturday of “three missing climbing groups near the summit of Mont Blanc in very bad weather.”

The groups set out “without a guide,” the prefecture said.

As part of an intensive rescue operation, two Koreans were rescued alive from an altitude of 4,100 meters (13,450 feet) on Sunday morning.

But later the weather worsened, so that rescue workers could not continue their search for the people still on the mountain in the following days.

On Tuesday morning, a search helicopter from Mont Blanc turned back because it could not find a way through the clouds.

A senior PHGM commander told the regional daily Le Dauphine Libere that they had briefly reached the Italians by telephone and determined their location at an altitude of 4,600 metres on the north face of Mont Blanc, but then the connection was lost.

At 4,809 metres, Mont Blanc is the highest peak in Western Europe and is very popular with climbers from all over the world.