Brit among six killed by avalanche in the Alps after ‘skiing off piste’

Published 1 day ago
Source: metro.co.uk
(FILES) This photograph shows a general view of La Plagne ski resort, south eastern France, on January 6, 2010. Two people died on December 26, 2025, in avalanches in winter resorts in the French Alps, local authorities said, calling on skiers to be wary of changing weather conditions. A 60-year-old mountain guide died after he and a group he was leading were caught by an avalanche in an off-piste sector of the La Plagne resort with a second skier dying after being swept away by an avalanche hours later near the village of Valloire beneath Mount Jovet. Four cross-country skiers were swept away by the avalanche. One of them suffered cardiac arrest and could not be resuscitated. Two others were slighty injured. (Photo by JEAN-PIERRE CLATOT / AFP via Getty Images)
A British man was killed skiing from La Plagne ski resort in south eastern France (Picture: AFP)

A British skier has been killed by an avalanche in the French Alps after being found buried under eight feet of snow.

Rescue teams received an avalanche alert at 1.57pm on Sunday and immediately went to the site, the resort said.

A team of around 52 people, including medics, ski school instructors and a helicopter-deployed piste dog, were called in.

The man was found after 50 minutes of searching under 2.5 metres of snow, the resort said.

He was with a group when the avalanche struck, but was not equipped with an avalanche transceiver and was not with a professional instructor, it added.

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La Plagne said its thoughts were with the man’s family.

Rescue teams recovered the body of another skier who had been buried in an avalanche in Courchevel, the resort said, without providing further details.

And a 32-year-old off-piste skier died after being caught in an avalanche at Vallorcine in the Haute-Savoie region of the Alpos, the local gendarmerie said Sunday.

Two separate avalanches claimed the lives of three off-piste skiers in the French Alps on Saturday.

French weather forecasters had warned of a high risk of avalanches this weekend. Officials in the Savoie region recorded at least six avalanches in the department’s ski areas on Sunday morning.

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