Following the disappearance of six skiers on Saturday, five of them were found dead by a rescue team on Sunday evening while the search for the sixth person continues.
The group headed off from Zermatt, a popular resort known for the iconic Matterhorn peak, on Saturday morning and were headed to Arolla, following a path along the Swiss-Italian border. Police of the Valais canton said they were notified that the group went missing by a family member waiting for them in Arolla.
The authorities were called at 4:03 pm on Saturday and one of the missing people managed to also contact the emergency services at 5:19 pm, according to a Valais police statement. Tracking the call, rescue services managed to locate the group around the Tête Blanche Mountain, at an altitude of 3,500 metres.
Unfortunately, bad weather conditions and an increased chance of avalanche brought the search mission to a halt around 9 pm on Saturday. Anjan Truffer, the head of Zermatt’s air rescue service, told the BBC that the weather was so bad that “flying is not an option”, with “very strong winds, heavy snow, high avalanche danger, and zero visibility”.
The mission was resumed on Sunday, at 5 am, but rescuers only managed to reach the group around 9:20 pm. Five of the six missing people were found dead near the Tête Blanche by a team made up of three rescuers and a police officer.
The sixth person is still missing. The search was again put on hold last night between 1 am and 8:30 am due to deteriorating weather conditions. At the time of writing, there is no further update on the status of the sixth skier. Rescue services believe the group was overcome by bad weather rather than an avalanche and believe the sixth person has good chances of surviving if they dig themselves into the snow.
Police have confirmed the group was made of people aged between 21 and 58 years old, five of which belonging to the same family, from the Valais canton, while a sixth came from the Friborg canton. It is yet unclear whether the deceased are part of the same family or not.
The path the skiers were following goes further than Arolla, to Chamonix. While it is a popular cross-country ski route, the 120 km long course is only recommended to very experienced skiers.
