Avalanche Buries Teens Hiking In Alps 11 Killed In Group That Ignored Warning Signs, Left Marked Trails
French youths snowshoeing in the Alps strayed off the trail Friday and were caught in an avalanche that killed 11 people and injured nine others, officials said.
About 150 rescue workers, backed by a dozen helicopters, used search dogs to comb the site near the Italian border for any snowshoers or skiers who may have been caught in the slide, which the French media called the country’s worst in a decade.
The search, which was suspended late Friday after seven hours, was to resume at dawn today, authorities said.
Officials still don’t know why the group of 34 youths, escorted by six adults, ignored warnings to stick to marked trails after recent storms blanketed the region with a heavy, unstable layer of snow.
The dead included nine students and two adults, officials said. Seven children and two adults were injured, they said.
“I had to reassure some of the victims that their classmates in worse shape were still going to be all right,” Dr. Frederic Perrin told LCI television.
Rescue workers in bright red coveralls worked throughout the afternoon carrying bewildered young survivors aboard stretchers to helicopters that whisked them to area hospitals. They also probed the snow-covered mountain with sensing equipment, chainsaws and long poles in search of the missing snowshoers.
Prime Minister Lionel Jospin visited the hospitalized survivors Friday evening, along with his education minister, Segolene Royale, and his youth and sports minister, Marie-George Buffet. He also visited a morgue where the bodies of the victims had been transferred.
In a statement, President Jacques Chirac expressed his “profound emotion and great sadness” from the accident.
French television showed worried parents waiting in hospital halls and a rescue worker performing heart massage on one of the victims in a parking lot that had been converted to a field hospital.
The youths, ranging in age from 14 to 16, were hiking along the mountainside above the Orres ski station, outside the marked trails, when the wall of snow swallowed them Friday afternoon, according to local authorities. Several skiers above the group reportedly touched off the slide.
“I told them they shouldn’t go. There are warning signs everywhere,” Michel Roussel, manager of the cabin where the group was staying, told reporters.
Gendarmes said the youths were all from the Fresh Air Centers of Chateauroux, an organization partly funded by the Youth and Sports Ministry, and went to a high school in the middle-class town of Montigny-le-Bretonneux.
The adults in the group included at least four certified guides, said a statement by the Youth and Sports Ministry. Still, the ministry sent a team of investigators to the site.
For Michel Davein, the father of one of the injured students, it was futile. “The security measures were filled by complete nitwits. You have kids who know nothing about life, some who discover snow for the first time and suddenly they’re facing the risk of avalanches. Why didn’t they also hunt white bears?”
The avalanche happened in the Cretes du Lauzet section of the Orres, a ski station in the Haute Alpes region not far from the Italian border.
The risk of avalanches there been high since the start of the week, experts said, noting that more than 3 feet of snow have fallen in the Alps since Sunday.