(Updates with defence dept statement, paragraphs 4-6) ZURICH, July 12 (Reuters) - An avalanche killed six Swiss soldiers on Thursday as they were climbing the Jungfrau, one of the country's most well-known peaks, in a training exercise, Switzerland's defence department said. The victims, all men, were scaling the southern flank of the mountain in the Bernese Oberland canton in central Switzerland, when fresh snow gave way at 3,800 metres, said Thomas Kenner, spokesman for Swiss mountain rescue service REGA. "It was an avalanche," he said. "Six soldiers were killed and their bodies have been brought down to the valley. Eight other soldiers were unharmed." In a statement, the defence department said the recruits were training as mountain specialists and had set out from their base in the village of Andermatt earlier on Thursday. "The soldiers, in their 17th week of training, had been instructed and equipped for such a high-altitude exercise," it said, adding that they had been accompanied by mountain guides. Defence and Civil Protection Minister Samuel Schmid ordered an inquiry into the accident, telling a news briefing in the capital Berne: "In such moments, words seem empty." The six, who were linked by ropes in groups of three, were swept several hundred meters (yards) to their deaths. The Swiss army regularly uses mountain territory for specialist military training.
