Death toll up to 8 after Swiss Alps storm

GENEVA: A sixth person has died after a group of 14 skiers were caught up in a storm, police said yesterday, after the bodies of two climbers were also found elsewhere in the Swiss Alps.

Late Tuesday morning, “a sixth person died. The deceased was a 52-year-old Bulgarian woman,” police in Valais canton said in a statement.

Bad weather in the Pigne d’Arolla area of the Swiss Alps on Sunday had caught the group of skiers by surprise.

The group had set out from the Dix rest-stop and had intended to make it to Vignettes to sleep, trekking along a route called The Serpentine.

The manager of a rest-stop in the remote mountain region sent out a call for help at dawn on Monday, triggering a major relief operation that involved seven helicopters, police said.

One person, a 59-year-old Italian national who was serving as a guide for the group, was found dead on the scene following a fall, police said.

Four other Italian nationals, two couples aged 45 and 53, died in hospital Monday.

Three more people, a 72-yearold Swiss man, a 56-year-old Frenchwoman and a 43-yearold Italian woman, remained in serious condition, police said, adding that one of the cases was considered life-threatening.

Others in the group were merely suffering from ‘mild hypothermia’.

All the families had been informed of the tragedy, police said. — AFP