Missing since Wednesday, the two men were both Alpine rescuers from the southern Austrian city of Villach, close to the Slovenian border, the rescue service said on Facebook.

They were scaling the Spigolo Comici ridge in an attempt to reach the Cima di Riofreddo peak, at over 2,500 metres (8,200 feet) of height, when they fell.

After calling the missing mountaineers and receiving no reply, relatives alerted the rescuers who deployed a helicopter to the scene.

Their bodies were found dangling from their climbing ropes on Thursday morning, still partially anchored to the mountainside at an altitude of around 2,000 metres, the rescuers added.

The rescue service said it was “difficult to establish” whether the fall was caused by a mistake or a possible rockslide from above.

One of the victims was born in 1994 and the other in 1985, it added. No further details about the victims or the dynamics of the incident were immediately available.

Search efforts from Italy’s Alpine rescue force started on Wednesday after authorities were notified that the pair had not returned from the climb, according to an Ansa report.

The search was suspended for the night and resumed on Thursday morning with aerial assistance from a regional rescue helicopter.

It was the helicopter team that spotted the climbers’ bodies, Ansa reported.