The death toll rose to 19 and two other people remained missing in the Swiss Alps yesterday after a flash flood swept away tourists on a "canyoning" adventure expedition, police said.
"We have found a 19th body," a police spokesman, Mr Juerg Mosimann, said at the scene near the resort of Interlaken. "We will continue our search into the night. We will stop when it is dark and resume on Thursday."
Five of six injured were released from hospital. Police have not identified the dead but said they came from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, South Africa and Switzerland, and included four women. Mr Mosimann could not confirm a report the victims were all part of a 99-strong group on a camping trip organised through London-based Contiki Holidays.
A spokeswoman for Contiki Holidays, based in Bromley in southern England, said the company now had dropped canyoning from its itineraries.
Ms Bernice Windley said a total of 99 people were on Contiki tours in Switzerland this week and 44 of them had taken the canyoning option. Searchers were focusing on the Saxetenbach gorge, just south of Interlaken, and the Luetschine river downstream. They were also scouring Lake Brienz into which the Luetschine empties.
The gorge turned into a raging torrent on Tuesday, as a flash flood carrying rocks and debris hurtled into a group of 53 people, including tourists from Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and South Africa.
Thrill-seekers who go "canyoning' swim and slide downstream in fast-flowing rivers, wearing padded wetsuits, life jackets, helmets and ropes.
The tragedy is Switzerland's worst white-water accident since 1993 when 17 people died while rafting in the Graubunden area, the Swiss news agency ATS reported.
The commander of the Wilderswil fire brigade, based near the accident site, said he had received information on Tuesday afternoon that there was a flood but it was too late to act.
Mr Markus Gerber said he had seen a 50 cm increase in the water level and the wave was probably 1.5 metres high in the canyon.
"With such a warning that is a clear alarm phase red, for me it is totally incomprehensible that they went ahead," a canyoning guide told Swiss television.
Mr Georg Hoedle, the manager of the Adventure World company which organised the fateful excursion, said on Swiss television: "I am terribly sorry for the victims and those left behind."
He said all guides had undergone the two-week training for canyoning on top of their mountain guide education.
The Australian Consul, Mr Malcolm Skelly, who spoke to injured Australians at the scene, quoted one survivor as saying that "everything happened in a flash". The group was in the river bed "when suddenly the water swept everything away".
Swiss adventure holiday companies halted canyoning excursions yesterday. At a news conference, police said it could take days or even weeks to identify the bodies, which have been taken to the Swiss Forensics Institute at the University of Berne.
Police were asking relatives of the dead and missing who were planning to come to Switzerland to bring dental records, X-rays or any other material that could help identification.