Prayers offered for victims of Glencoe avalanche
Prayers have been offered at St Munda's Church, Glencoe for the people affected by an avalanche that killed four climbers yesterday, and left a fifth with head injuries. One man survived unscathed.
BBC News reports that the Reverend Moira Herkes, who led the prayers, said it was "the worst accident... here for many years."
She added: "It is very distressing, because people come here for pleasure and when something like this happens it hurts everyone involved. This is a very beautiful place, but at times it can be very dangerous."
Six climbers were caught in the avalanche on Bidean Nam Bian mountain at around 2pm on Saturday. One man survived and a woman is in hospital in Fort William.
Bidean Nam Bian is a munro - a mountain higher than 3,000ft - with several different climbs.
John Grieve, leader of the Glencoe mountain rescue team, which co-ordinated the search, said that the alarm was raised by two climbers, who were not part of the group of six, when they discovered one of the casualties lying in the snow.
Soon after, the male survivor of the party called police to report that other members of his party were missing.
The bodies of the climbers were located after a major search operation.
Mountaineer and former Glencoe Mountain Rescue team leader Hamish MacInnes told the Daily Mail that conditions were "hazardous."
He said: "I was talking about the danger with a member of the mountain rescue committee just about an hour before it happened because there was a heavy fall of snow.
"It had been blowing a lot and forming a very fine powder. It was a fairly hazardous situation for avalanche.
"I was speaking to some people who were up the mountain and the snow was drifting quite badly although a lot of it had gone, the temperature had risen. It was a hazardous wind, the conditions were quite bad."
The Daily Mail reports that the group defied warnings about the conditions to go climbing on the 3,772ft mountain.
They were climbing at the mountain's Church Door Buttress when they were swept away by snow tumbling down the mountain's rocky surface.
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