Climbing News from France.

CHAMONIX, France (AP) — French police found the bodies of eight climbers Monday after they disappeared in an avalanche near Mont Blanc, western Europe’s highest peak, officials said.

The bodies were buried under as much as 165 feet of ice. The climbers — four Germans, three Swiss and an Austrian — most likely had fallen into a deep crevasse, said Regis Lavergne, commander of the High Mountain Gendarmes.

Because the area is prone to avalanches, rescuers will not attempt to recover the bodies, which are expected to resurface in “a few weeks or several years” because of the movement or melting of the glaciers, he said.

The avalanche began early Sunday after a block of ice as wide as two football fields cracked off a side of the Mont Blanc du Tacul, one of the peaks in the Mont Blanc range, at an altitude of 11,800 feet.