Five skiers killed in avalanche in Austrian Alps
Digital Reporter
Saturday, February 6, 2016, 5:27 PM - An avalanche in the Austrian Alps killed five skiers from the Czech Republic Saturday afternoon.
The skiers were taking part in a freeriding camp when the slide occurred in the Wattental Valley, around 40 km southeast of Innsbruck in western Austria.
Two other people were injured, while ten were rescued unharmed, Tirol police spokesman Helmut Schuetz told The Associated Press.
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The skiers were broken into two separate groups, one with 12 and the other with five people when the avalanche hit.
"It was one massive avalanche, several hundred metres wide and long," Schuetz said. "It was tons of snow."
Officials warned of the "considerable" avalanche risk in the region.
It's been a deadly season on the French Alps.
Five soldiers from the French Foreign Legion were killed in an avalanche near the resort of Valfrejus on January 18. A sixth person died days later in hospital. Four days before that, a teacher took students onto a closed skiing run at the Deux-Alpes resort when two French teenagers and a Ukrainian tourist were killed.
SOURCE: The Associated Press
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