China's state news agency says rescuers have suspended their search for a pair of Russian adventurers buried a week ago in an avalanche in southwestern China.
The pair had been given little chance for survival and heavy snowfall had raised the possibility of more avalanches endangering search parties, Xinhua said in a brief report on Wednesday.
A pair of Russians who survived the original accident on Oct 28 had asked for the search to be suspended, it said. They planned to send a team to search for the bodies once conditions stabilized in January, it said.
The victims had been taking photographs on Siguniang Mountain in a remote area of Sichuan province when the accident occurred. Their names have not been released.
Russians have become frequent visitors to western China and there have been frequent reports of them going missing. In September 2007, four Russians drowned in China's Xinjiang after their kayaks overturned in one of the region's raging streams.