A mountaineer died while descending the Matterhorn on Friday, falling 800 metres onto a glacier. Two other climbers lost their lives last week on the iconic peak near Zermatt in southern Switzerland.
The climber, who was thought to be alone, was at an altitude of about 4,200 metres on the north face when he fell for unknown reasons. A formal identification of the body is still ongoing, the police said.
Last Wednesday, two other climbers died after falling over 1,000 metres off the Matterhorn. The team had set out from a mountain hut on Wednesday morning to climb the 4,478-metre high peak
When they did not return from their tour as planned, a search operation was launched. During a reconnaissance flight, the bodies of the two mountaineers were discovered on the north face of the mountain.
The two bodies have not yet been formally identified, a spokesman for the police in the canton of Valais told the German Press Agency (DPA). The investigation into the cause of the accident is also still ongoing.
The innkeeper of the Hörnli Hut, where the two climbers were staying, reported that a thunderstorm had moved in on Friday a few hours after they set off. “It probably caught them,” he told DPA.
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