Europe’s most deadly avalanches

Below is a list of Europe’s most deadly avalanches over the past two decades, after snow swept over a group of foreign climbers in the French Alps on Thursday, killing at least nine people.

– January 18, 1993: TURKEY – 56 people are killed when an avalanche swallows up around 50 houses in the north-eastern village of Uzengili.

– January 27, 1993: RUSSIA – More than 50 are killed on the transcaucasus road in the southern Russian Republic of North Ossetia.

– January 16, 1995: ICELAND – 14 are killed, including eight children, in the western village of Sudavik. In October a new avalanche leaves 20 dead in the north-western coastal village of Flateyri.

– January 23, 1998: FRANCE – 11 people, including nine adolescents, die in the Alps near to the centre-eastern town of Orres.

– February 9, 1999: FRANCE – 12 die in an avalanche which sweeps over around 20 chalets in the village of Tour in the Alpine valley of Chamonix in the centre-east of the country.

– February 23, 1999: AUSTRIA – 31 are killed in a massive avalanche which swallows up several houses in the reputed ski resort of Galtuer in the Tyrol.

The next day an avalanche kills seven in the neighbouring hamlet of Valzur.

– March 28, 2000: AUSTRIA – 12 die at Kitzsteinhorn, 80 kilometres (50 miles) to the south west of Salzburg.

– September 20, 2002: RUSSIA – The melting of a glacier in the village of Nijni Karmadon, in Russia’s southern republic of North Ossetia, leaves 127 dead and missing. Among the victims are the Russian actor and director Sergei Bodrov Junior and his 24-person team which was shooting a film at the scene when the catastrophe struck.

– January 25, 2009: TURKEY – Ten climbers are killed after being caught in an avalanche in the north-eastern Zigana massif.

– April 10, 2010: RUSSIA – Ten people, including five German tourists, die in the far eastern Kamchatka peninsula, when the helicopter on the ground that was taking them skiing is caught in an avalanche.

– July 12, 2012: FRANCE – An avalanche on Mont Maudit in the Mont-Blanc range in the French Alps kills at least nine people and leaves four missing. Among the dead are three Britons, three Germans, two Spaniards and a Swiss.