Six Skiers Killed In Alpine Avalanches

Avalanches swept down Alpine slopes at the height of the ski season Monday, killing three skiers in Italy and three in Switzerland.

In Italy, back-to-back avalanches in the northern Venosta Valley trapped a group of seven Germans and one Italian skiing on an unauthorized route, Alpine rescue official Luigi Weger said.

Searchers recovered the bodies of two women and one man and accounted for the remaining five skiers, Weger said. At least one was hospitalized with severe hypothermia.

In Switzerland, police blamed an avalanche near the popular Davos ski resort on a German man and his son who skied into an area of deep snow despite avalanche warnings.

The two set off a snowslide that covered the father and two Swiss men skiing farther down the mountain on a prepared course, police said. Only the son survived.

In central Switzerland, an avalanche next to a children’s ski area caught an adult and three children at the Lasenberg ski area near Erlenbach.

The adult and two of the children managed to climb out of the snow by themselves and pulled a 6-year-old girl to safety.