The allure of the sparkling white snow of Europe's mountain peaks is becoming an increasingly fatal attraction as figures show that more skiers and climbers will have died in avalanche accidents in the Alps this winter than in any previously recorded season.
By Saturday, in the French Alps alone, 49 people had died in off-piste avalanche accidents -- the highest figure since records began 35 years ago, and already above the normal average total winter fatality rate of 30.
In Switzerland there have been 19 deaths since last October, including 12 in the past 17 days.
Forecasts for the Alps and the Pyrenees suggest conditions that could further destabilize the snow cover.
Experts blame this winter's high death toll on irregular weather patterns. The fashion for extreme sports has made the situation worse by attracting more people to perilous slopes.
Frederic Jarry, of the Grenoble-based Anena snow and avalanche research center, said it was difficult for even the fastest teams to reach avalanche victims quickly enough to save their lives.
"Someone who is buried under snow has an 80 per cent chance of survival if he or she is dug out within 15 minutes," he said.
"This is because it becomes difficult to breathe and impossible to move even under a few centimeters of snow. After 30 minutes their survival chances are reduced to 30 percent," Jarry said.
"An added problem this year has been slab avalanches. These are caused by wind depositing snow on leeward slopes and creating slabs of sometimes 200m square which are difficult to see," said Thomas Wiesinger, of the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Study in Davos
"When you are on a slab and it starts moving, it is almost impossible to get off it," he said.
Wiesinger said the worst affected Swiss areas are the big resorts, Zermatt, Davos, St Moritz, Les Diablerets and Verbier.
"In the past week we have had five avalanche accidents -- though fortunately no fatalities -- in one valley at Verbier. We think any skiing above 1,800m is dangerous at the moment and I would advise people not to go on to anything [with] more than 30o slopes," he said.
But avalanche expert Henry Schniewind said that "telling skiers about danger is a little like trying to teach safe sex to adolescents -- they will try it anyway."
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