Photo: bbc.co.uk

September 24th 2012, 10:30am

A press conference just took place at the town hall in Chamonix, France. Jean-Louis Verdier, deputy mayor, and Christian Trommsdorff, director of the SNGM (French Mountain Guides Syndicate), explained that, “The rescue teams feel they did all they could to find further victims, but they have now given up all hope of finding any more survivors. The search has been called off for good.”

It was initially reported that seven French alpinists had been killed or were missing, though this number has now been brought down to six. The seventh person is actually a Canadian national. Amongst this list of six French victims are: two guides who are reported dead, one guide missing, two clients dead and one client missing. Their names will be released in another press conference this afternoon as some families have yet to be notified.”

There were still five injured people at base camp this morning, they were taken to Kathmandu today. It is believed that one of these people is a French alpinist who was dug out of the snow in a deep state of hypothermia.

The town of Chamonix also expressed their deep gratitude to the Nepalese rescue teams who “reacted very quickly and were on site in record time. This is the first time that Nepal has put such big means into place, proving that they are no longer behind. They have done their very best and we thank them for their hard work.”