5 Dead and 6 Injured After French Alps Avalanche Hits French Foreign Legionnaires During Military Training Exercise
Valfrejus, France – On Monday, January 18, 2016 an avalanche struck a group of 51 French Foreign Legionnaires in the Savoie Region of the French Alps near the Italian border. Five soldiers died and six more were injured in the avalanche. Of the injured, four were treated on site and two were transported by helicopter to the hospital.
The soldiers were taking part in an organized backcountry military training exercise in the Petit Argentier area between 2,350m and 2,600m. The avalanche hit the soldiers at approximately 1:50 PM. Three helicopters, five police dogs, and three doctors responded to the avalanche. The soldiers were found immediately. They were all wearing avalanche beacons.
This French Foreign Legion military training unit consisted of both veterans and new soldiers. They were all “members of the 2nd Foreign Engineer Regiment based at Saint-Christol in southern France” and had been “training at France’s national centre for mountain warfare at Modane” according to the BBC. The nationalities and names of the deceased has not been released yet.
The French Foreign Legion was established in 1831 and allows foreign nationals to serve in the French Armed Forces. Currently, there are over 7,700 members from over 140 countries.
We will try to update this post as more information becomes available.
UPDATE 1/25: According to Yahoo News, a sixth soldier has died from his injuries sustained in the avalanche. He was a Hungarian. The other French Foreign Legionnaires who died were French, Italian, Nepalese, Moldovian, and Albanian.
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Read more about the avalanche accident that killed five French Foreign Legion Soldiers from these sources:
- CBSNews.com
- BBC
- ABC.net.au
- The Guardian
- First Tracks Online
- Wikipedia: French Foreign Legion
- Yahoo News
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There have already been multiple avalanche fatalities in the Alps in 2016:
- Off Piste Avalanche Kills Russian Teen In Tyrol, Austria
- Two Off Piste Skiers Killed In Avalanche Near Verbier, Switzerland
- Three Dead After Avalanche Hits School Group In French Alps
- Avalanche Kills Two Italian Cross Country Skiers In Swiss Alps
- Two Skiers Die In Separate Avalanches In French Alps
- Mont Blanc Avalanche Kills Two Lithuanian Climbers
