The bodies of five skiers have been found in the mountains near Switzerland’s luxury resort of Zermatt, police said.
A helicopter was sent to survey the area around the Rimpfischhorn after climbers alerted authorities to abandoned skis near the summit on Saturday.
“The bodies of five people were quickly found,” Swiss police said, adding that authorities had opened an investigation and were working on identifying the victims.
The Rimpfischhorn is a 4,199-metre (13,776-foot) mountain that lies east of Zermatt, near the Italian border, and is popular with backcountry skiers.
The aviation firm Air Zermatt said it flew a rescue mission to the site on Saturday afternoon where it found the bodies of the victims.
The company said a group of mountaineers had spotted the four pairs of abandoned skis at an altitude of about 4,000 metres as they made their way up the Rimpfischhorn from the Britannia hut.
After the group raised the alarm, Air Zermatt said its rescuers found three bodies on an avalanche cone, a mass of snow and other debris deposited by a snow slip.
Two other people were discovered about 200 metres above on a small area of snow, the firm said.
A cause of death has not yet been made public.
Valais cantonal police said the victims were located on the Adler glacier after aerial and ground searches.
Air Zermatt said it had undertaken another challenging rescue mission nearby shortly before the five bodies were discovered.
It said heavy wind and fog had led to two mountaineers becoming stranded on the 4,000-metre Fiescherhörner. The “extremely difficult” conditions led to a first rescue mission being aborted, the company said, with a successful attempt made six hours later.
The discovery came four weeks after heavy snowfall triggered avalanches and road closures in the popular skiing destination.
Zermatt, which is famed for its views of “the world’s most photogenic mountain,” the Matterhorn, was temporarily inaccessible due to the deluge of snow last month, local media reported.
The Guardian has contacted local authorities for comment.
