Two die on Mont Blanc, as avalanche victims are remembered

16:17, 15 July 2012

CHAMONIX. July 15. KAZINFORM The Mont Blanc massif claimed two more lives on Saturday night at the end of the most lethal week on the range in almost half a century.

Rescue workers operating from both the French and Italian sides of the border said that they had found the bodies of a young Spanish man and a young Polish woman. The discovery came just hours after the town of Chamonix paid tribute to nine mountaineers who were swept to their deaths by a huge avalanche on Thursday, the Guardian reports.

According to early reports, the latest victims were members of a party of four that set off from the Goûter refuge on the French side earlier in the day. They were said to have run into a storm close to the border. Two of the climbers - both Spanish - managed to get back down to raise the alarm. But their companions were found dead from exposure.

Their bodies were located at nightfall at around 4,400 metres. The discovery is bound to prompt renewed questions as to whether authorities on the French side are providing prompt and effective warnings to foreign tourists about the risks they face.

Earlier, nine candles were lit on the altar of the mountaineers' church of St Michel in Chamonix at a service in memory of the nine climbers the massif had claimed last week. Three were British. Roger Payne, 55, was one of the country's most experienced climbers, a former general secretary of the British Mountaineering Council. Steve Barber, 47, and John Taylor, 48, lived on the same street in Upper Poppleton, a village near York.

As their names and those of the others were read out, the congregation of about 100 stayed remarkably composed. But when that of 33-year-old Pia Lunzenauer was read out, emotion overcame her mother and she rested her head on the shoulder of the young man next to her, weeping silently. Lunzenauer was the only woman among the dead, and the youngest.

The Roman Catholic parish priest, Georges Vigliano, told the congregation: "We do not want to try to explain the inexplicable, but to say that the Lord stands beside all those who are in life - even after life."

After a reading from St Luke on Jesus's denial that suffering was linked to sin, the local Protestant pastor, Isabelle Pierron, told mourners: "This was not an 'act of God'. We have it from Jesus's own mouth that God is not a God of vengeance."

The sky over Chamonix had cleared just in time for the service. After a day and a half of cloud, the sun began to break through. By the time the two celebrants were robed for the ecumenical service, the only clouds were high and wispy or twirled around the peaks, like that of Mont Maudit, "the Cursed Mountain", where the nine climbers died on Thursday morning.

St Michel, which was elegantly restored in 1987, is a church of the mountains - literally so. Its facade was wrought of the same granite found in the awe-inspiring pyramids of rock that can be seen from every side of the building. The Maison de la Montagne, with its office for guides, is next door.

The mourners, reinforced by a contingent of local dignitaries, were an eclectic group. There was a woman in bright climbing boots, wearing a T-shirt. There were men in suits. And there was an elderly gentleman, who looked as if he had just descended from one of the peaks. He had on shorts with climbing sticks protruding from the rucksack at his feet. Some of those in the congregation had come as much to give thanks as to remember the dead. Thomas Dybro from Denmark, who survived the avalanche, arrived with his arm in a sling.

A woman from Gloucestershire who declined to give her name said: "We were on the mountain that day and our guide was a best friend of one of the guides who was lost. It was too close for comfort."

Seemingly unaware of the solemnity of the gathering inside, a party of young climbers chatted freely as they sauntered past with their rucksacks over their shoulders and their helmets swinging from the corners of their rucksacks.