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A British woman and her son have been killed in an avalanche while off-piste with three relatives and a skiing instructor at a French resort.
The avalanche, involving eight people, was triggered yesterday afternoon at around 3.40pm near the Mont-Joly chairlift located in the Saint-Gervais-les-Bains ski area.
The two victims – a 54-year-old British mother and her son, 22 – were found buried and deceased, French media reported.
A group of five British skiers from the same family were caught up in the blast and were being supervised by an independent ski instructor they had known for several years.
Survivors included the woman’s British husband who is also yet to be named.
The instructor, who was the only skier wearing an avalanche victim detector, was found miraculously unharmed despite being completely buried with the two deceased Brits.
One source said: ‘Three out of the eight skiers were buried in the snow, and a search party was mobilised very quickly after an emergency alarm.
‘The instructor was detected and pulled out, but the man and woman who were buried perished, following a far more complex and long search.’
The source added: ‘The initial theory is that another party of skiers higher up triggered the avalanche.’
Public prosecutors at Bonneville confirmed that a criminal investigation had since been launched, with judicial police investigating on site.
The shocking ordeal happened in an off-piste section of the French resort at an altitude of 7,545ft, the administration for the Haute-Savoie region said – with the flow of the avalanche thought to have travelled 400 metres.
Dozens of mountain rescuers set out to search for skiers who were trapped, finding a man and woman dead and a third person injured. Five other people were rescued.
Saint-Gervais Mayor Jean-Marc Peillex said the weather conditions were too unstable for such risky outings.
‘It rained, it snowed, it was warm. There are enough marked paths to ski on,’ he told BFM television.
‘It’s terrible what happened. A family is decimated, and we are very sad in Saint-Gervais.’
There was another Alpine fatality on the same day when a 31-year-old man fell 500 metres from a rocky ridge in Chantepérier, in the Ecrins Massif.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
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Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
