5 people hit by avalanche on piste
Wednesday March 3, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

The accident happened last Saturday at the end of the afternoon.  At 15.45 in the Breya area of the resort, at an altitude of 2,350m, an avalanche came down the mountain across a marked run.

3 British people were buried and 2 Swiss people.  Other skiers and snowboarders who saw the incident came to their aid and called out the rescue services.

The ski patrol arrived with avalanche dogs, but the people had all been dug out by the fellow skiers by the time they arrived on the scene.

Everyone involved was able to go down the mountain by chairlift and no-one was seriously hurt.

All 3 British people were taken to hospital suffering from minor injuries and shock but were released later that day.

The warning flagIt is relatively rare for an avalanche to hit a piste but it does happen.

More often than not it is set off by other skiers, or snowboarders, who are riding above the marked trail.

See this related story where a group of people in Zermatt set off an avalanche last December and are being prosecuted by the legal authorities. The was a similar incident in Anzere too.

In this instance it was a natural and spontaneous avalanche.

The area is reported to have been bombed and inspected by the ski patrol who pronounced it safe.

A full investigation is now under way.

Champex is a small resort near Orsières in the St Bernard area of Switzerland, in the Valais region, near Verbier.

It has just 4 lifts and 25km of marked runs that start from an altitude of 1,460m.

It is not clear if the 3 British people involved were holidaymakers or resort workers from the nearby resort of Verbier.  Locals sometimes go there to escape the crowds of its more famous neighbour.

The danger scaleIn the nearby resort of Bruson a person died in an avalanche at the weekend as we reported here and in a separate incident a skier was caught in an avalanche in the Gentiene/Mont Fort sector of Verbier.

The person was carried away in the slide but recued.

The avalanche risk was 4 on a scale of 5 in Verbier at the time.

Also in the last few days in Verbier a person died after skiing into the branch of a tree while off piste in the Col des Mines area of the resort.

With the high number of accidents and deaths in just one small part of Switzerland the authorities are urging people to be cautions and observant.

So far there have been twice as many deaths in The Swiss Alps, 24, as is normal for this stage of the season.

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