Four climbers found dead of exhaustion in the French Alps

Four climbers on France’s Mont Blanc in the Alps, trapped by bad weather since Saturday, were found dead of exhaustion short of the summit on Tuesday.

The climbers, two South Koreans and two Italians, had headed up the mountain without a guide, the local prefecture of Haute-Savoie told French wire service Agence France-Presse. Attempts to find and rescue the four stranded hikers failed because of low visibility and bad weather.

The South Koreans, 45 and 53 years old, were found first, followed by the two Italians about an hour later, according to The New York Times.

The pair of South Koreans have not been identified, while Italian newspaper La Repubblica identified the two Italians as Sara Stefanelli, 41, and Andrea Galimberti, 53.

The Chamonix High Mountain Gendarmerie Platoon had been alerted about three roped parties of climbers getting lost in bad weather Saturday, according to AFP and French newspaper Le Figaro. Two other stranded climbers, both South Koreans, were evacuated Sunday at an altitude just above 13,450 feet.

The other four could not be reached. An Italian rescue team that traveled up Mont Blanc on foot could not find them, the French police said, and the two Italians were able to make phone contact with rescuers only for a short period before losing the connection, according to the New York Post.

Local officials said the climbers should not have gone up the mountain when they did and that a guide could have helped.

“The idea of the guide is indeed always welcome and necessary, but it is not obligatory. It is perfectly possible for seasoned mountaineers to embark on this climb, but the prerequisite is the quality of the information that we take at the start which allows us to say ’I’m going, I’m not going’. In this case it was rather ’I’m not going’ that had to be chosen as an option,” Chamonix-Mont Blanc Mayor Eric Fournier told state-owned news channel France Info, as translated from French.

Mr. Fournier added that language could have posed a barrier, and that “we must re-examine and continue working in this direction, on the quality of the information that we can provide them. It is the only way to avoid tragedies of this type.”