Ten skiers missing in California avalanche, after three killed by two snowslides in French Alps

A rescue ski team makes their way to the area of an avalanche in the Castle Peak area of Truckee, California. Rescuers were searching today for 10 skiers who were hit by an avalanche in the mountains of California, where a huge storm has dumped several feet of snow. Photo / Handout, Nevada County Sheriff's Office via AFP

Rescuers were searching today for 10 skiers who were hit by an avalanche in the mountains of California, where a huge storm has dumped snow.

Officials say a group of 16 people - four guides and 12 clients - were caught up in the avalanche on Castle Peak in the Tahoe area.

Six have been accounted for, but mountain rescue teams were looking for the others.

“Highly skilled rescue ski teams have departed from both Boreal Mountain Ski Resort and Tahoe Donner’s Alder Creek Adventure Centre to make their way to the six known survivors, who have been directed to shelter in place as best they can in the conditions,” the Nevada county sheriff’s department said.

“Rescue efforts remain in progress now with 46 emergency first responders. Weather conditions remain highly dangerous.”

Meanwhile, avalanches continue to be deadly this winter in Europe.

Two avalanches killed at least three people in the French Alps today, including a British and a Polish national, authorities said, bringing the toll this winter from such accidents in Europe to 28.

A group of five people were skiing off-piste in the mountains near the resort town of La Grave when the first avalanche struck, said the prosecutor’s office in Gap, administrative capital of the Hautes-Alpes department in southeastern France.

Two of the skiers were killed, and another who was guiding the group was injured and taken to hospital.

The victims were both in their 30s: a Polish man and a Polish-born British man who was living in Switzerland, said prosecutor Marion Lozac’hmeur.

The two other skiers in the group, a German and an Australian, escaped unharmed.

The avalanche risk in the La Grave area, on La Meije mountain, was “high” - four on a five-point scale - because of a combination of fresh snow and wind, according to the French weather service.

Adding to what has been a deadly avalanche season in the French Alps, another avalanche later swept away several hikers in Valloire, in the neighbouring department of Savoie, Mayor Jean-Pierre Rougeaux told AFP.

Prosecutors said the avalanche had killed one person and left two others in critical condition.

All were French nationals.

The avalanche risk in the area at the time was at the maximum of five.

Prosecutors have opened investigations to determine the causes of death and injury in both avalanches.

The latest deaths bring to 28 the number of people killed in avalanches in France since the start of the season, with the majority occurring since January, including six in one weekend.

An avalanche killed three off-piste skiers, including two British nationals, in the French Alps last week, a day after several ski resorts closed due to the risk of snowslides.

-Agence France-Presse