On Monday, local authorities said a sixth body was found following an avalanche southwest of Mont Blanc in the French Alps.
Emergency workers were deployed immediately after the incident at the Armancette glacier near Mont Blanc in southeast France, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
“A provisional report shows four people dead and several injured. Rescuers are still at work,” the Minister said, thanking them for their ongoing efforts. “Thoughts for the victims and their loved ones,” he added.
Rescuers later found a fifth and then a sixth victim killed by the tumbling masses of snow. As no other reports of missing people remained, the rescue team ended their search.
The avalanche struck at noon, spreading across an area of 1 kilometer by 500 meters (0.6 miles by 550 yards) at an altitude of 3,500 meters (11,480 feet), said Emmanuel Coquand, a spokesperson for the local authorities of Haute-Savoie, Reuters reported.
The avalanche occurred unexpectedly, considering the favorable weather conditions.
The people swept away by the avalanche were backcountry skiing.
Coquand declined to comment on the identity of the six victims. Local media said two were mountain guides, and the other four were their clients, all French, including a young woman and man in their 20s and a couple in their 40s.
Video footage taken from a nearby skiing resort, Contamines-Montjoie, shows clouds of snow rolling down the mountainside.
The mayor of the town of Contamines-Montjoie, Francois Barbier, told Agence France-Presse it was “the most deadly avalanche this season.”
French President Emmanuel Macron sent his condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims.
“At the Armancette glacier in the Alps, an avalanche has caused casualties. We are thinking of them and their families. Our rescue forces have been mobilized to find people stuck in the snow. Our thoughts are with them too,” Macron tweeted on Sunday, as protests against his pension reforms increase.
Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in Western Europe. Located on the French-Italian border and extending well into Switzerland, the Mont Blanc massif has long been famous for hiking, climbing, skiing, and snowboarding.
Avalanches are a regular occurrence on the high mountain range.
In June 2016, a hiker was caught on film as he was swallowed by falling snow on Mount Maudit (“Cursed Mountain”), the third-highest peak of the Mount Blanc massif. Nine climbers lost their lives in an avalanche in the same spot four years earlier.
According to Frédéric Jarry, project manager at ANENA (the French National Association for the Study of Snow and Avalanches), around 30 people die in avalanches yearly.
Reuters contributed to this article.
