At least five people were killed and two others were reported missing after avalanches in the French Alps, police said Sunday, according to AP. An off-piste skier was killed in a snowslide in Val d'Isere, and a group of nine skiers in the neighboring station of Tignes were swept up by an avalanche that killed one of them, a Polish man. The other eight skiers survived. In the nearby Les Arcs station, the body of a skier who had gone missing Saturday was found by rescue crews on Sunday. About 50 kilometers (30 miles) to the northeast, near the town of Chambery, a hiker who was overwhelmed by an avalanche and slammed into a rock died on impact, police said. In the town of Bernex in the Haute-Alpes region, south of Lake Geneva, a 30-year-old man from the southeastern city of Lyon was killed in an avalanche. Rescuers were searching for two hikers with expertise in icy conditions near the French entrance to the Mont Blanc tunnel that links France and Italy. Heavy snowfall has swept across much of France in recent days, causing power outages, leading to the temporary closure of airports and highways, and delaying train traffic. About 20,000 homes were without electricity in southern Aude region on Sunday, utility workers said. About 30 power were lines down, officials at utility EDF said. The outages were caused mainly by falling trees and branches that buckled under the weight of snow and ice, the utility said. A return to full service was not expected before Monday.
