Dramatic footage has emerged of an avalanche in the Italian Alps, showing the moment when skiers attempt to flee from the vast plume of snow.
A mass of snow can be seen rumbling down a steep slope towards a crowd of skiers near the Italian resort of Courmayeur on Tuesday.
Waiting at the Zerotta chairlift in Val Veny, those in the crowd at first appear indifferent, some even skiing towards the huge avalanche. But in the moments before it hits, many start frantically trying to escape the descending white cloud of snow and ice.
Young children can be seen desperately trying to ski uphill away from the avalanche, while several stumble to the ground as they seek safety. There have been no reports of any casualties.
It is the latest in a series of avalanches to have struck the European Alps, in a deadly week that has seen at least three Britons killed in France.
The avalanche in Courmayeur came just days after two people were killed in an avalanche in the same resort on Sunday, around 200km (124 miles) from where the Winter Olympic Games are taking place in Milan.
Italy’s alpine rescuers said last week that fresh snowfall from recent storms has combined with windswept snowcaps resting on weak internal layers to create particularly hazardous conditions across the entire Alpine crescent, which borders France, Switzerland and Austria.
On Tuesday, a British man and a French man died near the resort town of La Grave in the French Alps, bringing the total number of avalanche-related deaths in France to 27 since the start of the season, according to French newspaper Le Monde.
The avalanche risk in the La Grave area was listed as “high” on Tuesday, according to the French weather service Meteo France.
Last Friday, two British skiers and another French skier were killed when they were swept away by an avalanche while skiing off-piste in the Val d’Isere ski resort in southeast France. The Britons were named as Shaun Overy and Stuart Leslie.
Meteo France had issued a red alert for avalanches in the area just one day before the incident, with the Val d’Isere ski resort strongly advising skiers against going off-piste.
Last Thursday, rescuers said a record 13 skiers, climbers, and hikers had died in the Italian mountains during the previous week. Ten of those fatalities were attributed to avalanches, triggered by an exceptionally unstable snowpack.
“Under such conditions, the passage of a single skier, or natural overloading from the weight of snow, can be sufficient to trigger an avalanche,” warned Federico Catania, a spokesperson for Italy’s Alpine Rescue Corps.
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