2024-04-01 19:37:27
In Zermatt, Switzerland, several people were hit and swept away by an avalanche. After a search operation by rescue workers that lasted several hours, three people were found dead, the police said. A fourth person was found injured. The search was stopped in the evening.
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Off the newspaper Blick The avalanche can be seen in published videos from skiers. Huge amounts of snow fall downhill and create large clouds of snow. A voice can be heard on a video saying in English that there were four people in the area on the opposite slope.
According to police, the avalanche occurred in a variant area. This is terrain where experienced skiers usually ski in deep snow outside of the marked and controlled ski slopes. This is where most avalanche accidents happen. Many off-piste skiers carry avalanche detection devices with them, which send a signal even meters deep under the snow. There are also avalanche airbags that, when inflated, ensure that skiers do not end up so deeply under the masses of snow.
The Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research warned of a high risk of avalanches in the morning. “Very large and in some cases extremely large spontaneous avalanches are to be expected,” it was said. There was also a great danger of avalanches in Tyrol in Austria and in South Tyrol. The reasons for this were a lot of fresh snow and sometimes hurricane-force winds, which caused large accumulations of drifting snow.
In Zermatt, Switzerland, several people were hit and swept away by an avalanche. After a search operation by rescue workers that lasted several hours, three people were found dead, the police said. A fourth person was found injured. The search was stopped in the evening.
Off the newspaper Blick The avalanche can be seen in published videos from skiers. Huge amounts of snow fall downhill and create large clouds of snow. A voice can be heard on a video saying in English that there were four people in the area on the opposite slope.
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