In the Northern Alps in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, two Britons die in an avalanche

ACCIDENT – Two people died on Thursday December 28 following an avalanche in the Mont-Blanc massif, while a third suffered a fatal fall in the Ecrins massif in Isère, the authorities said.

An avalanche was triggered early in the afternoon in an off-piste area near the Saint-Gervais-les-Bains ski area in the Mont-Blanc massif, AFP learned from the Haute prefecture. -Savoy.

A flow that started at an altitude of around 2,300 meters descended 400 meters, involving eight people, according to the chief of staff of the prefect of Haute-Savoie, Animya N’Tchandy.

The balance sheet is “two deceased victims, one lightly injured and five other people who are unharmed”. An investigation has been opened, she added.

The two deceased people are a mother and her son, British people who were skiing as a family supervised by an instructor in an off-piste area, the Bonneville prosecutor’s office said this Friday, December 29.

Fatal fall in the Ecrins massif

The 54-year-old mother and her 22-year-old son were found “buried and deceased” during searches which mobilized around twenty rescuers, two dog teams, a doctor and two helicopters for nearly five hours, prosecutor Karline Bouisset said in a press release. The phenomenon could have been caused “by two cross-country skiers who were upstream”.

The two Britons were part of a “group of five skiers of English nationality all from the same family and supervised by an independent ski instructor whom they had known for several years”, said the prosecutor. None of the family members carried an avalanche victim detector, noted the prosecution.

Furthermore, in Isère, a young man of 31, who left “off trail with a friend to go see the chamois” fell 500 meters from a rocky ridge in the commune of Chantepérier in the Ecrins massif and died, indicated the PGHM (high mountain gendarmerie platoon) of Grenoble. The other hiker, aged 26, was able to be evacuated and was unhurt.

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