Negen mensen onder lawine Frankrijk bij Tignes: zeker vier doden

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Negen mensen onder lawine Frankrijk: zeker vier doden

Negen mensen onder lawine Frankrijk: zeker vier doden

Zeker negen mensen zijn bedolven onder een lawine in het populaire Franse skioord Tignes. Vier mensen zouden zijn overleden en vijf worden er vermist.

De Franse krant Le Dauphiné meldt dat de negen personen verrast werden door de lawine toen ze buiten de piste aan het skiën waren. Hun nationaliteit is onbekend.

Reddingswerkers waren volgens lokale media snel ter plekke. Er wordt onder meer met honden gezocht naar de vermisten.

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Nine people involved in Tignes avalanche
On Monday 13 February, an avalanche of about 400 meters was carried off by nine people in an off-road area in Tignes (Savoie). According to the rescue, at least four skiers died. The balance could still increase with five people still stuck under the snow.

The alert was given at 11am in an area located at 2,100 meters above sea level. According to France 3 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, skiers evolved on the off-piste sector of Tovière, above the lake of Tignes on the slope of Lavachet in the Tuff corridor. A disengaged person would be in a critical condition.

Around 13:00, "five people were still buried with a heavy accumulation of snow on them," says the Albertville CRS, pessimistic about the possibility of lifting them alive.

Avalanche risk was at 3 out of 5

A plate of snow amassed behind a break of slope would have "unhooked following the group of 8 skiers on vacation in the resort, framed by a professional", said the station. Several dog and dog teams are on site. This is the most serious accident since the start of the ski season.

On Monday, the avalanche risk was 3 on a scale of five, according to the station. Described as "marked" by Météo France, this level does not in principle provide for "spontaneous departures of large avalanches", but prevents the risk of triggering "especially by heavy overload" and in some specific slopes.

Tignes-Val d'Isère is one of the most important ski resorts of the French Alps whose highest point is 3,456 meters. Located in the Massif de la Vanoise, it offers 480 hectares of marked trails for about 80 lifts and 3,200 hectares off-piste.

Since the beginning of the season, there have been 13 avalanche accidents in the Alps and the Pyrenees, which resulted in a total of three deaths. Last season, there were 45 accidents, resulting in a total of 21 fatalities.

Three avalanches this weekend

On Sunday, an off-piste skier was killed by an avalanche in the Mont-Blanc massif (Haute-Savoie). This 35-year-old restaurateur was descending the Aiguille Croche, a summit located in Praz-sur-Arly, northwest of the ski resort of Megève, in the Mont Blanc massif. The accident occurred at 2,300 meters above sea level.

Two hours later, another avalanche buried a second skier, aged "between 50 and 60 years old", who lived alone at 2,100 meters above sea level in the commune of La Clusaz (Haute-Savoie) Merdassier, a summit of the Aravis mountains. Dragged on 400 meters by the casting, the man was found at 1,700 meters above sea level by three hikers whom he had crossed before, and who made use of a detector of victims of avalanches. He was transported by the PGHM of Chamonix to the hospital of Annecy in a critical state.

It was the third serious accident caused by the triggering of an avalanche when a skier passed this weekend. Saturday afternoon, it is a thirty-year-old who perished in the Hautes-Alpes after being swept away by an avalanche accidentally triggered at 2,400 meters above sea level. The accident occurred in the area of ​​the umbilic, a summit of the Briançonnais, had occurred while the thirty-year-old practiced ski touring with two other skiers, all unharmed.

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14 H 58: According to information from the Dauphiné Libéré, the victims were part of a collective group off-piste supervised by a monitor of the French Ski School of Tignes le Lac. In particular, they were equipped with avalanche detectors. Eight people were registered, but only seven showed up at the meeting point with the monitor this morning. The record is very heavy: the eight skiers would have died.