Dramatic images were captured on Tuesday, showing a huge cloud of snow and ice collapsing on a steep slope near a hotel in the Italian resort of Courmayeur, in north-western Italy.
In a video shared on social media, a group of skiers can be seen waiting next to a chairlift on the other side of the mountain, looking up at the massive snow cloud heading towards them.
The dense and swirling white mass quickly gained speed and fell over a row of tall pine trees.
Onlookers seemed fascinated by the avalanche descending from the mountain. However, at the last moment, when they saw it covering the mountain, their admiration turned into terror.
Dozens of skiers, many of them appearing to have small children with them, tried to flee the area at the last second but were engulfed in a snow cloud.
The hotel staff stated that the tourist facility was not affected by the avalanche.
"From the images, the avalanche seems to have fallen right next to the city center and the hotel, but it's just a matter of perspective. Our unit, as well as the city center, are protected by a large depression. The snow fell much further than where the hotel is located. Our staff (...) directly saw the situation and said that the avalanche posed no danger to the city center," explained representatives of the V Retreats Cervino hotel in Valtournenche, featured in the images, to Corriere della Sera.
The magnitude of the snow cloud is incredible, and an avalanche of this size occurs only once or twice a year in this area. Usually, avalanches are triggered in a controlled manner to protect the ski slopes, the Italian newspaper writes.
The risk of avalanche in the Aosta Valley Alps remains high, at a level of 4 out of 5, after the massive snowfalls in recent days, and such phenomena have also been reported in other areas of the region.
Two skiers were killed, and one was seriously injured on Sunday morning when an avalanche hit the Val Veny slope in Courmayeur. Three men were skiing off-piste in Couloir Vesses, a popular freeride route in the Italian ski resort. One of them died on the spot, while another died on the way to the hospital, as reported by Fox News. The third was seriously injured and is hospitalized at Le Molinette Hospital in Turin.
T.D.