Kiwi killed in Italian Alps avalanche identified as Katherine Clarke

The New Zealand woman killed in an avalanche in the Italian Alps has been named by international media as Katherine Clarke.

Clarke, 39, was a New Zealand citizen based in London. She is originally from Dunedin and was due to celebrate her ninth wedding anniversary tomorrow.

The Guardian reported Clarke was identified by Italian rescuers alongside Matthew Ziegler, 43, Nicolas Bruno Vergez, 36, and Wespazjan Wisla, 38.

The quartet had been missing since about midday on Sunday - the alarm was raised when the group failed to turn up at a meeting point with friends, according to the Telegraph.

The Telegraph reported the group were believed to have been engulfed by an avalanche, near Courmayeur, and buried under 1.8m of snow.

Efforts to recover the bodies were hampered by extremely steep terrain and the risk of further avalanches, The Telegraph said.

An MFAT spokeswoman said the New Zealand Embassy in Rome was providing assistance to the family of a New Zealand citizen who has been killed in an avalanche near Courmayeur in Italy.

It was a tragic weekend for fatalities in the Alps, according to the Telegraph, with at least nine people losing their lives - including the four struck by the avalanche near Courmayeur.

According to the Telegraph the spate of fatalities has claimed the lives of several skiers and a snowboarder.

A snowboarder was killed in the northern Italian region of Lombardy and an 18-year-old skier was hit by another avalanche in the South Tyrol region near the border with Austria.

An avalanche in France's Savoie region killed an off-piste skier on Saturday.

In Switzerland, an avalanche on Saturday swept away a man and a woman in the canton of Bern.

The man was killed and the woman is recovering in hospital.

In Austria, an avalanche hit two men aged 30 and 52, in Carinthia, killing the older man but leaving the other one unscathed.