Breaking: Avalanche buries skiers on piste at French Alps resort of Tignes

Rescue operation is ongoing

LIVE updates
- A ski slope hit by an avalanche in Tignes - At least a dozen skiers carried away
[link to www.jeanmarcmorandini.com]

An avalanche occurred on Tuesday morning, around 10 am, crossed a blue slope of the resort of Tignes, Savoie, carrying several skiers, said the gendarmerie.
"According to witnesses, there are many people under the avalanche," said a regional spokesman of the gendarmerie. The rescue operation is made very difficult by the lack of visibility which prevents the sending of helicopters, the rescuers having to go on foot.

The Codis de Savoie, quoted by Franceinfo, says that two groups of skiers were trained by the snow casting. These skiers were on a blue slope at the bottom of the resort that leads to Val Claret.

The High Mountain Gendarmerie platoon (PGHM) of Bourg-Saint-Maurice sent four men including a handler; Of Courchevel also left a dog handler and a doctor, said this source. The station's personnel are heavily mobilized.
The avalanche risk, which theoretically concerns only off-piste or closed tracks, was four out of five on Tignes on Tuesday. The ski area has been completely closed.
The station had already been mourned on 13 February by an avalanche off-piste, near the ski lifts, which had left four dead, three holidaymakers and their guide.

[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

there was also a relatively large quake in the Alps yesterday..


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Last Edited by Wubbo Ockels on 03/07/2017 07:56 AM

true, hmm
The good news is that they dont report any deaths. The skiers are safe as of the latest information

Went skiing once.
Once was more than enough.

So many of these this year

No one was hurt!

[link to www.msn.com]

The uncrushables

List of avalanches in the USA in 2017 so far. Several people were squished:
[link to www.avalanche.org]

Last Edited by nutmeg on 03/07/2017 08:22 AM

Awesome, thanks!

It takes more than once to get good enough to really enjoy skiing, many days to get descent at snowboarding.

Like many of life more enjoyable sports, there are risks for such great rewards. I always tell myself, to die doing something I love wouldn't be a ad thing.

Nature is stronger than us humans.

I hope as many as can that are in the avalanche will be rescued and taken out of danger.

I became proficient the first day I went skiing. I was skiing the black diamond courses by the end of the day...chucked the ski poles after I learned how to ski up hills and across flat areas without them.

Resort skiers don't know anything about avalanches and don't care, so I guess they must have been really surprised it happened to them. I had been a resort skier for some 20 years,but at one point I got fed up with the crowds and the way resorts ruin natural beauty and I switched to cross-country skiing and ski-touring - both are far more rewarding than resort skiing, though it's not that I don't use groomed pistes from time to time. Anyway, for an off-piste skier watching the surroundings, the quality of snow, watching out for possible dangers is a natural thing. At the same time most resort skiers only count rides and drinks and sometimes stop only to take a photo.

I picture you as the idiot in jeans who thinks they're hot shit after 1 day of busting their ass, telling everyone you're an awesome skier because you made your way (most likely out of control) down a black

Not being mean. I've been snowboarding for 18 years, 60-70 times a season while I was in school. That's typically the case when people say "I was skiing black diamond courses by the end of my first day" and "I don't need poles."

I find it fascinating what low IQ people think...

I've never been "typical" or normal...skiing for me is a lot like rollerskating. I grew up at the skating rink in the 80's and never had to pay, at the end of the night they held races and the winner got a free pass for admission.

Thanks for being on top of this so quickly OP.

And thanks to all for the updates.

We've skied Tignes several times, beautiful there! Sad that so many avalanches have happened lately. O.o

It's mind-boggling that early reports say several people were swept away, buried.. but later reports have no deaths, injuries. And while I'm so glad it ended well, I do hope the media is reporting things correctly.

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Same here. It started off bad and went down hill from there.

I would not go there


Tignes ski resort hit by second avalanche in a month

[link to www.cnn.com]