Courmayeur, Italy - Four Dutch climbers - a father and his three sons - fell to their deaths Thursday on Europe's highest peak, Mont Blanc, Italian rescue officials said.

The mother of the family survived the fall and was being treated for shock at a hospital in the north-western Italian town of Aosta.

"The climbers were linked together with ropes and when the group leader stumbled he dragged the others down with him," Aosta rescue official, Viglione Delfino, told television news channel SKY TG24.

The accident took place on a 3 800-metre-high slope of Mont Blanc which straddles the border between Italy and France.
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