Hiker killed on Mont Blanc

Saint-Gervais (France) Aug 24 (IANS/AKI) A 28-year-old man was found dead Thursday on the Fosses ridge on the French side of Mont Blanc Europe s highest mountain after he vanished while hiking on August 15.

The man was dressed in light hiking gear and fell to his death near the location where a 46-year-old man s body was found at the bottom of a crevasse on August 17 according to Saint Gervais Mayor Jean-Marc Peillex.

Police in Chamonix are still identifying the two men.

Three badly decomposed bodies found by a climber on the Miage glacier on the Mont Blanc massif on Wednesday may be those of a group of climbers that disappeared more than 20 years ago said police.

A wallet recovered close to one of the corpses contained a German ID card from 1995 belonging to a 23-year-old man police said.

The three bodies were probably covered by ice for decades which melted in the high summer temperatures according to police.

There have been a series of fatal accidents over the past month on Mont Blanc which straddles Italy s northwest border with France.

Climbers from France the Czech Republic South Korea and Ukraine perished while trying to scale the mountain s heights and the search for a missing Japanese climber was called off last week.

--IANS/AKI
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