Five children missing, one killed after French Alps avalanche

It was not immediately clear how many people (if any) remained unaccounted for Wednesday evening, or how many were found alive in the avalanche area.

Investigators in the French Alps are examining why a teacher apparently took schoolchildren on to a closed ski run shortly before a deadly avalanche.

Apart from the two teenagers that died, all other students from the group had been accounted for and were safe, the ministry said.

Rescuers have been working at a ski resort in the French Alps after a group of 10 children and the person accompanying them were swept away by an avalanche.

Visiting the school, the minister expressed her condolences to the victims’ families and urged their peers to “stay strong”.

Daniel Stanford, an electrical contractor from the United Kingdom on holiday in the Alps, told The Guardian he just avoided the avalanche and was only alerted to what happened “when scores of people were heading to the mountain to help dig and offer help”.

Rescue workers with dogs raced against time last night to try to locate five missing skiers before darkness fell.

Three helicopters can be seen hovering above the resort trying try and track any survivors under the snow by using a thermal camera.

A search and rescue operation was launched following the avalanche in the Deux Alpes region.

Commander Bertrand Host of the French police told BFM television that there had been an avalanche warning in the area before the snow slide, the AP reports.

The secondary school pupils are said to have been on a ski trip from nearby Lyon.

The Ukrainian man who died was not part of the school group.