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French Alps avalanche kills at least three skiers

Xinhua, January 14, 2016 Adjust font size:

A third skier has been confirmed dead and at least five injured in an avalanche in French Alps late on Wednesday afternoon.

The avalanche struck a group of 10 students from the Saint Exupery school in Lyon and their teacher skiing in the Deux-Alpes resort, killing two schoolchildren and a Ukrainian skier who's not part of the group.

According to the regional newspaper Dauphine Libere, four students were found in cardiac arrest and the teacher was unconscious, while 60 rescue workers have been mobilized in a search-and-rescue operation with sniffer dogs and a helicopter.

No confirmed number of missings was officially disclosed.

Local news radio channel France Info cited police sources as saying that the avalanche happened on a blacklisted ski trail at the Deux-Alpes resort in Isere, eastern France, which had been closed to the public, while news channel BFMTV reported that there had been an avalanche warning in the area before the snow slide.

French president Francois Hollande has sent his condolences to those victims' relatives in a statement posted in the evening, saying that the French education minister was on his way to Lyon and expected to arrive in the coming hours to "support the school community and the families". Endit