Six climbers killed in Italy and France as ice walls detach

Six mountain climbers have been killed in separate incidents in Italy and France after slabs of ice from frozen waterfalls detached from mountainsides, Alpine rescue authorities said.

Officials blamed the sun and a sudden spike in temperatures for melting the ice enough for it to detach.

The four climbers killed in Italy were scaling a waterfall in Gressony-Saint-Jean, in the Val d'Aosta region near the border with Switzerland, when part of the ice wall gave way.