Mountaineers in low shoes and trainers blocked on the Matterhorn
Published: Tuesday, Sep 24th 2024, 17:30
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Two mountaineers from Vietnam got into mountain trouble on the Matterhorn on Monday. They were only equipped with lightweight low shoes and thin trainers. After 14 hours, they were rescued from hypothermia.
The rescue of the two climbers was particularly challenging due to extreme weather conditions, as Air Zermatt announced on Tuesday. On Monday morning shortly after 7 a.m., the helicopter company received an emergency call that two mountaineers from Vietnam were in distress on the Matterhorn.
The weather was so bad at the time that neither an air rescue nor a rescue by land was possible. At 1 p.m., three rescue specialists from the Zermatt rescue station decided to climb the Matterhorn on foot to the accident site. They were exposed to snow, wind, ice, fog and cold. At over 3,500 meters, the rescue specialists discovered the two climbers in distress.
They were blocked below the normal route in impassable terrain. Inadequately equipped with light shoes and thin trainers, the climbers were also severely hypothermic. Due to the adverse weather conditions, the climbers could not be airlifted out of the Matterhorn wall at this time. The rescue specialists therefore had to abseil down to the injured mountaineers and then bring them back to the normal route using a rope hoist.
This was followed by an extremely difficult descent to the Hörnlihütte winter camp. Once there, rescuers and climbers in distress were able to seek shelter. At the same time, Air Zermatt was on standby with a helicopter to evacuate the alpinists if a weather window opened. At 2 a.m., the helicopter crew took off in the direction of the Matterhorn and was able to bring both the mountaineers in distress and the rescue specialists to safety in two flights.
Without the rescuers' efforts, the two Vietnamese climbers would hardly have survived the extreme conditions and would have frozen to death, Air Zermatt wrote.
©Keystone/SDA
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