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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Josh Salisbury

Zermatt: Three skiers including boy, 15, killed in avalanche near Matterhorn in Switzerland

A US teenager and two other people were killed in an avalanche near the Swiss resort of Zermatt, police have said.

One person was flown to hospital with serious injuries.

The avalanche occurred at about 2pm local time on Monday in an off-piste area of the Riffelberg, above the resort and below the famous Matterhorn peak.

Rescuers recovered three bodies and the injured skier, a 20-year-old Swiss man.

The victims were a 15-year-old American boy, as well as a man and a woman whose identification has not yet been concluded, police in Valais canton said in a statement.

They gave no further details, but said they currently have no information on the woman's identity.

Prosecutors were investigating the incident.

Last month, five members of a Swiss family were found dead after going missing while cross-country skiing near the Matterhorn in difficult weather conditions.

The cross-country skiers, five of them members of the same family, went missing around Tete Blanche mountain on Saturday on the Zermatt-Arolla path, near the Matterhorn mountain that straddles the border between Switzerland and Italy.

The group went missing during a ski tour and their bodies were discovered on March 10, police said.

Police did not immediately confirm the identity of those who were found dead.

Anjan Truffer, director of helicopter rescue company Zermatt Mountain Rescue, told Swiss media outlet Blick: “The picture we found was ugly...We saw that the ski tourers had tried to build a cave and protect themselves from the wind. 

“The ski tourers froze to death at altitude, disorientated.”

Zermatt is a popular mountain resort renowned for skiing and attracts tourists from around the world.

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