Hope running out for climbers

A MOUNTAIN guide and a climber have been stuck at 4,000m altitude in the Alps for more than five days.

Emergency services have been trying to rescue the pair, who are on the Mont Blanc massif, where temperatures are -10 in the daytime and -25 at night.

Several helicopter teams were unable to locate them yesterday due to difficult weather conditions. “Hope is getting slimmer,” said a rescue service leader on Europe 1 radio.

Both experienced climbers, Olivier Sourzac, 47, and Charlotte Demetz, a 44-year-old Parisian, set off on Wednesday to climb the Grandes Jorasses by the Linceul route, a long glacier which peaks at 4,200m.

Bad weather stranded the pair on the mountain, and their mobile phone contact with emergency services ran out last Friday, when the phone’s battery ran down.

In the last contact they had, the climbers said they had dug a hole in the snow under an ice ridge to shelter in.