Climbers killed in avalanche

Two mountain climbers died today in an avalanche in the Pyrenees in north-east Spain.

The Catalan regional government’s fire department said they were scaling a wall of ice when snow broke loose and crashed down on them.

They were climbing up a mountain overlooking a reservoir in Lerida.

A team of five firefighters assigned to a special operations rescue team was preparing to scale the same ice wall as part of an exercise and was also hit by the avalanche.

The fire department said one of them was slightly injured.