bad luck
Bodies of five ski tourers found in Switzerland
Mountain rescuers and helicopters prepare to depart for Tête Blanche mountain in the Swiss Alps. photo
© -/Canton Police Valais/Keystone/dpa
A ski tour has turned into a tragedy for a family in Switzerland. Five people died in the bad weather and one person remains missing.
The group had been on the ski touring route between Zermatt and Arolla since Saturday morning. Since she did not arrive at her destination, a concerned relative raised the alarm. Stormy weather and the risk of avalanches made it difficult for rescue workers to work.
The age of the six ski tourers was given as 21 to 58 years. According to information from the newspaper “Le Nouvelliste”, all of the dead belong to a family from the Swiss canton of Valais. It is said to be three brothers, her uncle and her cousin.
Cause of death still unclear
The victims did “everything they could to survive,” said a police spokesman. But the temperatures were extremely low. It remained unclear how experienced the ski tourers were and what equipment they had with them.
It was said that everything had been tried to find the missing people alive. According to the police, a total of eight helicopters and dozens of mountain rescuers were deployed. “The cooperation between the individual organizations worked well,” said the police spokesman.
The authorities’ cyber and IT specialists evaluated the data from the missing people’s cell phones. “These analyzes made it possible to confirm the mountaineers’ likely whereabouts in the mountain,” the police said on Monday.
The cause of death of the five tourers who have now been found is not yet clear. For now it remains unclear whether an avalanche led to the death of the five people or whether they froze to death. The public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the exact circumstances of the events, said Attorney General Béatrice Pilloud.