Five people died and one was reported missing after an avalanche that occurred on a glacier in the Mont Blanc massif, in the French Alps, on Sunday, according to the new assessment carried out by French authorities on Monday.
On Sunday, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said four people were killed in the avalanche on the Armancette Glacier, in the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps, which occurred shortly before noon local time.
“A 39-year-old woman” was found [ainda no domingo] and a “sixth person is still missing,” regional prosecutor Karline Bouisset said Monday.
Weather conditions were good on Easter Sunday, the mayor of Contamines-Montjoie, François Barbier, told AFP news agency.
Météo-France, France’s meteorological institute, has not issued any avalanche warnings for the region.
Initially, the emergency services found four dead, rescued one slightly injured and eight other people came out of the disaster unharmed.
According to the deputy mayor of the city of Contamines-Montjoie Elisabeth Mollard, interviewed on television channel RTL, the fifth victim was found at the end of the day on Sunday. The sixth missing would be his wife, according to her information.
Also among the dead are two guides from the company of St-Gervais (Haute-Savoie), announced in a statement from the National Union of Mountain Guides. The identities of the other victims have not been released.
On the same glacier on December 25, 2014, two brothers, experienced mountaineers in their twenties, died.
According to the mayor, a larger avalanche occurred in December 2021 in the same place, “down towards the village”, but there were no casualties.
Source: DN
