ALPINE DISASTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 196, 21 August 1933, Page 7

ALPINE DISASTER.

SAD DAY FOR ETON.

Four Masters Killed in Fall on

Swiss Mountain.

LEADER'S FATAL SLIP.

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

LONDON, August 20.

News reached Eton College yesterday that four masters who were on a climbing holiday in Switzerland were killed on the slopes of Mount Roseg (12,8S0ft) in Bernina Alps.

A search party was starting out when a guard arrived and reported that he had seen four bodies at the bottom of a high wall of rock in an almost inaccessible part of the mountain.

Evidently the climbefs fell down the ravine roped together. Their names are Messrs. E. 7. Slater, house-master (Timbralls), E. W. Powell, housemaster (Wootton House), for some year? coach to the Eton eight; H. E. Howson, house-master (Jourdelays), and C. White-Thomson, science master, eldest sou of the Bishop of Ely. 1 All the deceased were single men. They were members of the Swiss Alpine Club and experienced climbers. They were popular at Eton. Without a guide the four men had successfully climbed Mount Roseg, and were descending—a more perilous feat —when the leader apparently slipped on a loose stone on the treacherous surface of combined ice and snow. He fell and dragged the others over the precipice. Recovery of Bodies. A rescue party from Pont Eesiua recovered the bodies. It comprised Gaspar Grass, a prominent guide, and five others. The guide later said he had found three of the victims lying head downward on top of the fourth, whose head was upward. All werS iu a terrible condition, their necks broken and their bodies covered with wounds. The rope with which the four men were tied together was twisted about their necks. Clearly they had fallen head first. The rescuers found the watches of the victims still going. Their climbing irons were full of snow. They had not steps in the ice, consequently when they began to fall down the difficult surface they could not stop themselves. The bodies were put in sacks on skis and dragged to Cpaz, whence they were taken to a point where the rescue party could use a cart. When the remains reached Pont Resina a bell was tolled and they were met by the Mayor, -other notabilities and English visitors, who followed them in procession to the little church. There the bodies were placed on stretchers, covered -with sheets and Alpine flowers and placed before the altar in the sanctuary which has sheltered many victims of the mountains through, the centuries. Deaths in the Alps this year now total 71. :