Two climbers – a 37-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman from Zurich – died yesterday as they were trying to scale Lagginhorn, which towers above the chic Saas Fee ski resort in Wallis canton, the regional police said.

“After reaching an altitude of around 3,960m, the two climbers for an unknown reason fell about 200m into the void,” a statement said.

Wallis police also said a 19-year-old man from Bern had fallen and died on Monday while scaling back down the Stockhorn mountain, part of the plush Zermatt resort ski area.

In a party of rope climbers, he had slipped and fallen and “was then likely mortally wounded by a rock”.

Wallis police had previously said two other mountaineers – a 26-year-old Frenchman and a 36-year-old Dutch national – also died Monday in a rockslide while climbing the 3,540m Aiguille du Tour on the Swiss side of the Mont-Blanc range.

A climber injured in the incident – a 22-year-old Dutch national – remained in critical condition, police told the ATS-Keystone news agency today.

And on Sunday, a 47-year-old German-Ukrainian national was killed while trying to scale the 4,506m Weisshorn, Switzerland’s second highest peak.

He plunged 600m, according to the police, who have launched investigations into all the deadly incidents.