The Swiss voice in the world since 1935
Top stories
Stay in touch with Switzerland

Skier killed by avalanche in eastern Switzerland

Father killed by avalanche in GR during a ski trip with his son
There was a high avalanche risk at the time of the accident. Authorities are now investigating. Keystone-SDA

A 49-year-old man was killed by an avalanche on Tuesday afternoon while skiing with his 15-year-old son in Graubünden, eastern Switzerland. The two were travelling off a marked piste in Parsonz.

+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Several people were travelling down a slope off-piste next to a ski lift, the cantonal police of Graubünden said on Thursday. When an avalanche broke loose, it buried the father-son duo.

While the 15-year-old son was rescued from the masses of snow and taken to hospital, his father died on the avalanche field despite resuscitation attempts. There was a high avalanche risk at the time of the accident. Authorities have opened an investigation.

More

Mountain rescuers with search dogs, several rescue crews with helicopters, and mountain railway employees were involved in the search-and-rescue work. A care team was mobilised to look after the relatives and other winter sports enthusiasts who were on site at the time of the incident.

Second victim within a week

This is the second avalanche death in Graubünden in the space of a week. On Sunday afternoon, a 38-year-old snowboarder died in the Parsenn ski area in Davos when he was buried by an avalanche off-piste. On Monday, another snowboarder was rescued in Davos.

A total of 13 winter sports enthusiasts have died in avalanches in Switzerland this winter, according to information published by the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research.

Translated from German with AI/gw

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch.

External Content

Related Stories

Popular Stories

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR