Geneva, Switzerland: The search for eight hikers missing in the Swiss Alps has been called off, police announced Saturday, three days after they were lost in a massive landslide. "We have done everything possible to find them, but (police) rescue official Andrea Mittner has announced this afternoon that the search has now been abandoned," Sandra Scianguetta, police spokeswoman for the eastern canton of Grisons, told AFP. "We will not now be able to find anyone," Mittner was cited by Swiss media as saying.
The eight missing -- four Germans, two Austrians and two Swiss -- were hiking Wednesday on the Piz Cengalo mountain, near the Italian border, when the landslide struck, sending mud, rocks and dirt cascading down the mountain.
About 120 emergency workers equipped with infrared cameras and mobile phone detectors, helicopters and rescue dogs had been scouring a five-square-kilometre (1.9-square-mile) area of the disaster.
The landslide was so severe that the vibrations set off seismometers across Switzerland, measuring the equivalent of a 3.0-magnitude earthquake, according to the Swiss Seismological Service.
There could be more landslides in the area, local geologist Andreas Huwiler warned.
The eight missing -- four Germans, two Austrians and two Swiss -- were hiking Wednesday on the Piz Cengalo mountain, near the Italian border, when the landslide struck, sending mud, rocks and dirt cascading down the mountain.
About 120 emergency workers equipped with infrared cameras and mobile phone detectors, helicopters and rescue dogs had been scouring a five-square-kilometre (1.9-square-mile) area of the disaster.
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The landslide was so severe that the vibrations set off seismometers across Switzerland, measuring the equivalent of a 3.0-magnitude earthquake, according to the Swiss Seismological Service.
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There could be more landslides in the area, local geologist Andreas Huwiler warned.
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