Storm in French Alps claims German climber

GRENOBLE, France, Aug 26 (AFP) – A German climber died of cold and his British colleague was hospitalised with hypothermia after a night in a storm on Mont Blanc in the French Alps, Italian rescue workers said Thursday.

They did not give the name of the German climber, a woman who was found dead on Wednesday morning, 4,600 metres up the mountain.

But they named her British colleague as 49-year-old Edward Allen from Fairford in Gloucester, southwest England.

Allen had been hospitalised in Aosta, in nearby Italy, and was not in life-threatening condition, the Courmayer rescue service told AFP in the French Alpine city of Grenoble.

The two climbers had alerted the rescue services by mobile phone on Tuesday morning but the weather had been too bad for the latter to reach them before Wednesday morning, when a helicopter found them in the snow.