A series of avalanches in the Alps have claimed several lives over the past couple of days.<br /><br />Despite repeated efforts to resuscitate him, a 24-year-old Frenchman died on his way to hospital on Thursday, at Bardonecchia in the Italian Alps above Turin.<br /><br />He had been snowboarding and was apparently struck by an avalanche caused by other off-piste skiers. <br /><br />Reports in Italian media say police have opened an investigation for manslaughter.<br /><br />At Courchevel in the French Alps a mountain worker and his son were both hit by a wall of snow as they tried to reach their chalet refuge.<br /><br />The boy survived but his father, an experienced mountaineer, was killed.<br /><br />Two other teenage skiers died in separate avalanches, at Serre-Chevalier and at La Plagne.<br /><br />At Val Thorens, seven off-piste skiers reportedly triggered an avalanche and were swept away but were rescued by emergency services. <br /><br />At La Clusaz two people were seriously injured in an avalanche. They were among a group of about six skiers who had reportedly gone off-piste despite warning signs about the conditions.<br /><br />In the Swiss Alps at least two people have lost their lives.<br /><br />At St-Moritz a skier was swept away in an off-piste area; in central Switzerland an experienced cross-country skier was killed on Thursday.
