Fourth person rescued

Huge avalanche in Zermatt: several people buried

The world-famous Matterhorn in the Swiss Valais (archive image)

(Bild: APA/AFP/FABRICE COFFRINI)

In the Zermatt ski region at the foot of the Matterhorn, a huge avalanche thundered down into the valley on Easter Monday. Several hours after the avalanche in the Riffelberg ski area, three people were rescued dead from the masses of snow in the evening, according to the police, and a fourth person was found injured.

A large contingent of police and rescue workers were on the scene and the search area in the southern Swiss canton of Valais was "very large". It is still unclear whether there are other people under the masses of snow. The search was suspended for the time being and the police wanted to reassess the situation on Tuesday morning. They did not provide any information about the nationality of the victims.

Videos show force of nature
Zermatt lies below the world-famous Matterhorn. Videos taken by skiers, which are supposed to show the avalanche, show huge amounts of snow tumbling down and whirling up large clouds of snow.

The avalanche occurred in a variant area where experienced skiers normally ski outside the marked pistes in deep snow. Statistically, most avalanche accidents occur in such areas.

High risk in North and South Tyrol too
The Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research had warned of a high avalanche risk in the morning. "Very large and occasionally extremely large spontaneous avalanches are to be expected", it said. There was also a high avalanche risk in North and South Tyrol. The reasons for this were a lot of fresh snow and sometimes gale-force winds, which caused large accumulations of drifting snow.