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Thousands of tonnes of rock have broken off the summit of a mountain popular with climbers and tumbled into a valley in Austria, in an incident blamed by geologists on melting snow and thawing permafrost.

The incident on the Fluchthorn massif, part of the Silvretta Alps in the state of Tirol close to the Swiss border, led to a huge volume of black and grey rocks cascading down the mountain, and created clouds of thick dust visible for miles around, before much of the debris was carried away by a river, authorities said.

"Hundreds of metres of the summit have simply broken off," Christian Walter, head of mountain rescue for the Austrian region of Galtür, told local media.

Geologists told the Austrian news agency APA that the rockfall, which had been predicted for some time, had taken away part of the southern summit, including the crucifix typically found on mountain peaks in the region.