Five cross-country skiers found dead after going missing near the Matterhorn

Five cross-country skiers have been found dead on a high Alpine ridge after going missing over the weekend near the Matterhorn mountain, Swiss police said.

Christian Varone, commander of Valais regional police, told a news conference in Sion that six skiers had set out in “relatively good” conditions on Saturday but the situation deteriorated quickly.

They were on a route between the resort town of Zermatt, at the foot of the Matterhorn, and the village of Arolla, near the border with Italy.

Rescue authorities had announced a search on Sunday in difficult weather conditions.

Mr Varone said five of the six skiers were from a family from the Valais region, and a sixth person who lived in Fribourg in western Switzerland.

He said they were aged between 21 and 58, without providing names or further details. He did not specify which person was still missing or indicate whether all the victims were relatives.

“Unfortunately this region is accustomed to tragedies like this,” he said, alluding to the deaths of seven hikers — six Italians and a Bulgarian — in the region in 2018.

A relative of the family members alerted police on Saturday after the group did not arrive in Arolla, as expected, before nightfall on Saturday.

One of the skiers spoke by phone with a rescue squad, leading to their location near the Tete Blanche ridge at roughly 11,500 feet, police said.

That triggered an immediate mobilisation of search teams, but they were forced to turn back. Another search, hours later, had to be suspended because of poor weather conditions including avalanche, high wind, fog and cold, police said.

Technical teams used mobile phone networks to pinpoint the location of the missing mountaineers. A helicopter squad then ferried in a team including a doctor, a police officer and two rescuers to a cabin on the Dent Blanche peak, near where they recovered the five bodies.

Swiss prosecutors said an investigation is under way into the exact circumstances of the deaths.

A search for the sixth person continues.