Four climbers were found dead on Tuesday on Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps, the French authorities in the region said. The climbers, who were from Italy and South Korea, had been missing since Saturday.
Boris Duffau, a public prosecutor in Bonneville, France, said in an email that police officers discovered the bodies of two South Korean climbers, ages 45 and 53, after rescue officers traveled to the mountain by helicopter on Tuesday afternoon. The two Italians, ages 40 and 53, were found about an hour later, he said.
The security and rescue service that responds to emergencies on Mont Blanc, the Chamonix P.G.H.M., had received an alert around 5 p.m. on Saturday about people in need of help on the Three Mounts route of Mont Blanc, which is on the French side of the Alps that borders Italy, but a rescue helicopter could not immediately land there because of the bad weather, Mr. Duffau said.
The next day, two officers onboard a helicopter were able to rescue two stranded Korean climbers, Mr. Duffau said, but search-and-rescue teams could not continue their work because of worsening weather, which also prevented any rescues from taking place on Monday.
The prefecture of Haute-Savoie said that the climbers had “died of exhaustion,” and that they had done the climb without guides, Agence France-Presse reported.
La Repubblica, a newspaper in Rome, and other news organizations in Italy identified the Italian climbers who died as Andrea Galimberti and Sara Stefanelli. Mr. Galimberti was an experienced mountaineer who had climbed the Alps many times, and Ms. Stefanelli had recently completed a mountaineering course, Corriere della Sera, a newspaper in Milan, reported.
The two Korean climbers had traveled to the Alps with a mountaineering club and were found about 100 meters from the mountain’s summit, Yonhap News Agency reported in Seoul.
Mont Blanc, like other renowned mountains, has in recent years dealt with overcrowding and climate change, leading to more unpredictable and possibly perilous conditions for climbers. This year, there have been at least five other deaths on Mont Blanc, most of them from falls.
Human-caused climate change has reshaped the Alps and created hazards for climbers. It has affected snow patterns across the Northern Hemisphere, with warmer temperatures causing snow to melt faster in some areas, bringing a decline in snowpack. In the Alps, the warmer temperatures have melted permafrost, the frozen ground that can act as a glue in the mountains. The decrease in permafrost can create instability in the terrain and cause rockfalls.
After the four deaths were announced on Tuesday, the mayor of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Eric Fournier, told France Info, a public radio station, that climate change “absolutely” plays a role in creating conditions that can lead to accidents on Mont Blanc.
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