A woman and two seven-year-old girls have died after being caught in an avalanche while skiing in Val Senales in the Italian Alps. The victims, believed to be German, were part of a group skiing on the glacier at an altitude of about 2,400 metres near the Austrian border.
The woman, aged 35, was the mother of one of the girls, according to Italian media reports. A rescue operation involving 70 workers and three helicopters from Mountain Rescue, the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Finanza recovered the bodies. Two of the victims died at the scene, while one of the girls was airlifted to hospital but died en route.
Two other skiers from the same group—a father and his 11-year-old son—were injured but not critically. Thomas Stecher, director of the Val Senales Cable Car Company, said that avalanche risk had been assessed that morning and deemed safe, but he did not rule out the possibility that off-piste skiers had triggered the slide.
The incident is the latest in a series of avalanches to hit the Alps this winter. On Friday, a skier was rescued after being buried for five hours following an avalanche in Austria.
