Swiss mountain rescuers have hailed the survival of 21-year-old skier who was buried by an avalanche over the weekend as a miracle after he spent 17 hours under the snow.
The Swiss skier was found yesterday, the day after his family reported him missing.
His family triggered the search some two hours after he ventured off-piste near the Alpine village of Evolene in southwestern Switzerland.
But search and rescue teams had no idea where he was and he was only located the next morning - well after they had lost virtually all hope of finding him alive.
‘Everyone agrees that 17 hours with one's face buried in the snow is quite extraordinary,’ Jean-Marie Bornet, a spokesman for the local police force in canton Valais said.
‘It is, according to commonly-used terminology, a miracle.’
The victim, who has not been named, was taken to hospital suffering from ‘slight’ hypothermia after his body temperature fell to 34C.
Mr Bornet said no one could recall a similar case.
Normally rescuers rate the survival chances for those caught under tonnes of snow in terms of minutes rather than hours, due to the threat of injury, suffocation, shock and hypothermia.
It later emerged that the young skier - who reportedly skied off-piste often without an avalanche detection beacon - had been caught under the snow in an isolated area at around 3pm on Saturday.
The rescue effort began after he had already been under the snow for at least two hours.
Helicopter searchlights detected the first traces of his lone skiing venture well after darkness had fallen, but rescue services were forced to interrupt their overnight search because of dangerous conditions.
A helicopter search team finally spotted him at first light yesterday thanks to his helmet, which was barely visible in the snow.
Meanwhile, a German skier who was buried in an avalanche on Austria's Pitztal glacier has died in hospital, bringing the total number of fatalities from avalanches in Austria to 12 in a week.
The victim had been clawed out of the snow after his skiing companion alerted the rescue services following the avalanche on yesterday.
After being resuscitated at the scene, he was transferred to a clinic at Innsbruck University but he died overnight.
Most of the skiers, snowboarders and hikers who have been killed by avalanches since the start of the month had been off-piste.
Weather experts said today that the risk of avalanches remains high and warned against skiing outside marked slopes.
