Five die, three missing in Swiss avalanches

Five people died in avalanches in popular Swiss ski regions at the weekend, including a doctor flown in to rescue trapped skiers, and at least three were still missing, police said today.

Four people were killed in the Bernese Oberland, a region in western Switzerland popular among British tourists, when two successive avalanches hit a group of skiers on Sunday, a Bernese police spokesman said.

Police declined to give the victims' nationalities and said bad weather had halted the search for those still missing. A doctor flown in by rescue helicopter was engulfed by the second avalanche and died later in hospital.

Eight people were rescued, some seriously injured.

Switzerland's Rega helicopter emergency service said this was the first time in the group's history that a doctor had been killed by an avalanche.

In the southern canton of Valais a Swiss man hiking in the mountains with a guide was killed by a separate avalanche yesterday, Valais police said.

Rega said 37 people were killed or injured by Swiss avalanches in 2008 and 45 in 2007.