


Six people, including two mountain guides, were killed when they were swept by an avalanche that was caught on chilling video cascading down the French Alps on Easter Sunday.
Footage shows the massive wall of snow rumbling down the Armancette glacier in Contamines-Montjoie, in the Haute-Savoie region near Mount Blanc, about 20 miles southwest of Chamonix.
Rescuers recovered the bodies of the guides and a couple in their 20s on Sunday. The remaining victims — a 39-year-old woman and a man in his early 40s who was apparently her partner — were found Monday morning, prosecutor Karline Bouisset said, according to AFP.
The identities of the victims were not immediately released.
One person also suffered light injuries, and eight other people emerged unscathed from the snow, officials said.
The massive avalanche was about 3,280 feet long and 328 feet wide, according to reports.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in a tweet, “We’re thinking of [the victims] as well as of their families.”
Contamines-Montjoie Mayor Francois Barbier told AFP that skiing conditions had been good before tragedy struck.
“I think it’s the most deadly avalanche this season,” he said.
The weather service Météo-France had not issued any avalanche warning for the region, but a combination of warmth and wind may have triggered the disaster, officials said.
“It’s a particularly alarming tragedy in such good conditions,” said Dorian Labaeye, president of France’s mountain guide union, according to AFP.
“We have tens of thousands of people doing ski touring at the moment in the Alps, there are usually lots of people on the Easter weekend, and conditions are usually pretty stable at this time of year,” Labaeye told the France Info radio channel.
In 2014, two brothers — both experienced climbers in their 20s — died in an avalanche on the same glacier.