Two mountain climbers have died on the highest mountain in the Alps, Mont Blanc, Italian police said Sunday. The victims were a 25-year-old Spanish man and a 30-year-old Polish woman who froze to death on Saturday on a ridge at an altitude of 4,400 metres, dpa reported. Cold and exhaustion killed them after their party of eight was caught in a storm while they were roped together, clinging to the steep rock, the Italian news agency Ansa reported. The other six in the joint Spanish-and-Polish group suffered harm from frost and other hazards, including two injured during a rapid descent. Mountain rescue teams took them to an Alpine hut. Plans were being formed to airlift them off the mountain when the weather improved. Mont Blanc marks the French-Italian border. The climbers died near Dome du Gouter, a subpeak of the mountain, France Info radio reported, quoting the local mountain gendarmerie. Dome du Gouter (4,304 metres) lies on one of the routes used to ascend to the summit (4,810 metres). On Thursday, an avalanche swept away nine climbers from across Europe shortly after they set out to summit Mont Blanc using another route that crosses Mont Maudit. The cause of the avalanche is still being investigated.
