By Boris Pavlov, Year 10
For many of us, skiing, snowboarding or some other type of snow sport is a fond experience every February break. However, it is important to always stay save, as the recent avalanche in Crans Montana shows us.
After an unusually warm season, an 840 metre long and 100 metre wide avalanche covered 400 metres of a piste in Crans Montana. Several skiers and two ski patrollers were engulfed by it. 4 people were immediately rescued, after the Valais police and 244 people immediately began a search and rescue. Among them were health workers, the army and ski patrol, eight helicopters, avalanche dogs and more.
The injured people were helicoptered to a hospital in Sion and the police kept looking for people overnight and into Wednesday after people reported that more skiers could still be buried. Three of them were released but could do nothing for a ski patroller who was severely injured.
Crans Montana announced a week of mourning following his death and a minute of silence at 2:33. The question as to why an avalanche occured on the piste is being investigated, and until then the Kandahar piste remains closed.
Such events are exceedingly rare, and according to the Representatives of the Institute for Snow and Avalanche research in Switzerland (SLF), only one other death has occured as a result of an on-piste avalanche since 2008/09. The risk at the time was only set at ⅖, making the case even more puzzling.
The avalanche reminds us of the bravery of ski patrollers who analyse and save people every day, and that we should always be safe when going into the mountains, be it on or off the pistes.
