Avalanche on western slope of Croix de Tsousse kills five and leaves five injured
BERN, Switzerland (AP) Rescuers called off their search Sunday for the last member of a group of 11 French snowshoers and cross-country skiers swept off the slopes of a Swiss peak by an avalanche, bringing the death toll to five.
Rescue guides, helicopters, sniffer dogs and police halted their two-day search for the missing woman due to safety concerns and because they were unable to safely keep probing the snow that had packed like concrete and was some 20 meters (65 feet) thick in places, according to police in the canton (state) of Valais.
"For this reason and to ensure the safety of rescuers, the search was called off," the police said in a statement.
Three victims were found dead at the scene of the avalanche, while a fourth died in a hospital after the slide struck Saturday on the western slope of the 2,800-meter (9,000-foot) Croix de Tsousse peak, near the Swiss-Italian border.
Five others were injured, three seriously, and remained hospitalized Sunday. One woman escaped uninjured and was able to seek help.
The group nine snowshoers and two cross-country skiers were part of a mountaineering club from the Cluses region of France on a moderate day's outing to the Pennine Alps. They did not have a guide, but did carry avalanche beacons, police said.
Swiss police said the victims recovered at the scene were two women and a man aged between 57 and 65. No details have been released on the man who died in the hospital or the missing woman. The injured were four men and one woman aged between 39 and 62.
Switzerland's National Avalanche Center had warned of a "considerable" risk of snowslides in the region.
In January 2010, six people died in an avalanche in another Swiss region, Diemtigtal, and a doctor who went to help was swept away in a second avalanche.