Avalanches from heavy snowfall in the European Alps claimed more lives over the weekend, as a train derailed in Switzerland on Monday due to a snowslide, and roads and villages around Mont Blanc were closed or declared evacuation zones, UNN reports with reference to The Guardian.
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As large areas of the western Alps remain at high risk of avalanches – after a week during which warnings reached category 5, the highest level – Swiss police reported that five people were injured when a train derailed due to an avalanche near the town of Goppenstein.
This incident in Switzerland followed a series of deadly avalanches in the Alps in recent days involving skiers.
On Friday, two Britons were among three skiers who died in an avalanche while accompanied by an instructor in Val d'Isère, southeastern France.
A French citizen skiing alone also died. Albertville prosecutor Benoît Bachelet said the ski instructor, who escaped injury, tested negative for blood alcohol and drugs. He added that another Briton sustained minor injuries.
In another incident on Sunday, an avalanche claimed the lives of two skiers on the Italian side of Mont Blanc.
The incident occurred around 11 a.m. local time on the Couloir Vesses route, a popular off-piste route in Courmayeur, located at the top of the Val Veny valley, near the French and Swiss borders.
These incidents came in addition to a record number of mountain fatalities in Italy in the week ending February 8 – 13 people, including 10 in avalanches caused by an exceptionally unstable snowpack.
Fresh snow during recent storms and wind-blown snow caps on weak internal layers have created particularly dangerous conditions along the entire Alpine crescent bordering France, Switzerland, and Austria, the Alpine Rescue Service said.
"In such conditions, the passage of a single skier or the natural load from the weight of the snow can be enough to trigger an avalanche," said Federico Catania, a spokesman for the Italian Alpine Rescue Corps.
The very high current avalanche risk in the mountains is due to a combination of factors, including recent heavy snowfall and strong winds, which have caused heavy and loose layers to form on an already unstable snowpack created by a lack of snow early in the season.
"Since the beginning of the season, we have very complex, very unstable snow," Luc Nicolino, slope manager at La Plagne resort, told AFP last week. "It's a kind of mille-feuille with many hidden, fragile layers."
Conditions were already dangerous after storm Nils, which passed through the Alps last week, bringing 60 to 100 cm of snow, with another 40-50 cm forecast for some areas of the Alps on Monday.
Avalanche warning declared in Prykarpattia - SES16.02.26, 14:12 • [views_4026]