Two climbers have been found dead in each other’s arms.
The pair, who went missing on Saturday (7 September), were spotted from a helicopter by a mountain rescue squad yesterday (10 Sep) afternoon.
Andrea Galimberti and Sara Stefanelli were at an altitude of 4,600m (15,092ft) when they made a frantic call to a support team on the ground, as reported by Need To Know.
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“We can’t see anything, come get us, we’re at risk of freezing to death,” they said.
At the time, temperatures were as low as -15°C (5°F) and the wind was blowing at around 150 km/h (93 mph).
Search and rescue operations began as soon as there was a break in the weather.
Police said the chance of finding the pair alive was almost zero but their families had been holding out hope, given their considerable mountaineering experience.
Galimberti in particular had been climbing in the Alps numerous times.
They were found almost 70 hours after their chilling final call.
The last GPS signal from their phones placed them at an altitude of 4,500m (14,764ft) on the Mur de la Côte.
The Mur de la Côte is a steep, icy slope leading to the summit of Mont Blanc in Chamonix, France.
It is believed they died from hypothermia.
Their bodies were found in an embrace and it’s likely they died hugging each other in a bid to warm themselves up, authorities said.
Galimberti, 53, was from Como, and Stefanelli, 41, was from Genoa, both in Italy.
About 100m (328ft) from their bodies were the bodies of two South Korean climbers.
The pair had also gone missing during Saturday’s bad weather.
Their bodies were also close to each other and were taken to Chamonix by the police.
It took the police so long to find the missing climbers because the storm had dumped at least 50cm (20in) of fresh snow on the mountain.
The snowfall had buried all crampon traces on the glacier.
Furthermore, gendarmes couldn’t explore the area on foot because of the strong winds and the unstable snow, which posed an avalanche risk.
Stefanelli’s social media bio reads: “Climb the mountains not so the world can see you, but so you can see the world.”
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