Mont Blanc Avalanche

Rescuers Give up on Missing Climbers in French Alps

The French government has called off the search for five Austrian and three Swiss climbers missing after an avalanche early on Sunday. They are believed to have been swept up to 1,500 meters down a mountain near Mont Blanc by what one survivor called a wall of ice.

Mountain rescue teams in the French Alps have given up the search for eight climbers caught by an avalanche on Sunday.

"There is no chance of finding anyone alive," French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said during a visit to the region where the accident occurred near the French town of Chamonix. After taking a helicopter ride over the area she said it had been a "giant avalanche" and that the climbers had had no chance of escaping it.

A police spokesman told French television that the five Austrian and three Swiss climbers were believed to have fallen between 1,000 and 1,500 meters (3,280 and 4,900 feet). They had been climbing along a trail often used to reach Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe.

The avalanche was set off about 3 a.m. by the fall of a block of ice on Mont Blanc du Tacul, a peak in the Mont Blanc range, at an altitude of about 3,600 meters, the regional government of Haute-Savoie said in a statement.

Authorities deployed four helicopters, dozens of rescue workers, doctors, Alpine guides and sniffer dogs, the statement said.

Five Austrian and three Swiss climbers remained missing. At first, 10 climbers were believed lost, but then two Italians who were thought to have been among them were reported safe with only minor injuries. Rescuers only found two backpacks, a shoe and an avalanche alarm device.

"A wall of ice came towards us. We were dragged along by it for 200 meters," injured Italian climber Marco Delfini told the LCI French television channel. Alpine experts said the region was known for avalanches.

Seven people were taken to hospital, most of them with broken bones or sprains.

Mont Blanc du Tacul, 4,248 meters high, is on a popular route used to reach the top of Mont Blanc, which is the highest mountain in the Alps at 4,810 meters (15,781 feet). About 100 climbers have died in the Alps this year, from falls or heart attacks as well as avalanches.

cro/AP/AFP/dpa