An avalanche on Mont Blanc swept two skiers to their deaths – believed to be a mother and son from England – and left another injured. Meanwhile in a separate tragedy, a hiker was killed on another slope in the French Alps, according to local authorities.
Yesterday’s avalanche swept through an off-piste area of the Saint-Gervais-les-Bains ski resort at an altitude of 2,300 metres (7,545 feet), the administration for the Haute-Savoie region said in a statement.
Dozens of mountain rescuers set out to search for skiers trapped, finding a man and a woman dead and one person injured, and rescuing five others, the administration said.
The two Saint-Gervais are a mother and her son, aged 54 and 22, both English, according to broadcaster France Bleu. They are beleived to have been off-piste with their family and a ski instructor when they were trapped. An investigation was opened into the cause of the avalanche.
Saint-Gervais Mayor Jean-Marc Peillex said the weather conditions were too unstable for such risky outings.
He told broadcaster BFM: “It rained, it snowed, it was warm. There are enough marked paths to ski on.
“It’s terrible what happened. A family is decimated, and we are very sad in Saint-Gervais.’’
To the north, a 31-year-old hiker was found dead after falling on the slope of the Ecrins mountain range.
The hiker had veered away from hiking paths to look at mountain goats with a friend, local broadcaster France-Bleu cited rescuers as saying.
