French Teacher Faces Manslaughter Charge After Alps Avalanche Deaths
A French PE school teacher is under investigation after he led schoolchildren onto a closed French Alps ski slope where an avalanche killed two of them and a Ukrainian tourist, a prosecutor announced Thursday.
The Alps avalanche incident killed three people; a 16-year-old girl, a 14-year-old boy and a 57-year-old Ukrainian man who was not part of the group. Meanwhile, Yahoo! reported that, the police is still waiting to take the school teacher into their custody because he is still in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. According to the French interior ministry, other students and people involved in the ski party are now "safe and sound."
According to the investigation, the school teacher accompanied 10 of his students from the Saint-Exupery High School in Lyon to Les Deux Alpes ski resort despite the warnings placed in the area after the recent bad weather conditions. Grenoble prosecutor Jean-Yves Coquillat also said that the ski resort was actually closed that time and, because of the heavy snowfall that blanketed the mountains, has high avalanche risk.
"We have to interview the hospitalised teacher as soon as we can," Grenoble prosecutor Jean-Yves Coquillat said to the reporters on Thursday.
The avalanche risk level of Les Deux Alpes ski resort on Wednesday was raised to 3 on the scale of 5 which means that "a single skier can set off a snowslide," said Dominique Letang, Director of the National Agency for the Study of Snow and Avalanches. Officials have said that the danger had been well posted on the piste with warnings in four different languages.
"In 90 percent of cases, it's the action of a human being that causes an avalanche," Letang said.
A huge rescue operation consisting of 80 military personnel, police and dog search-and-rescue teams were launched after the incident Wednesday afternoon around 15:45 local time. Coquillat made it clear that only three were dead.
Back in Saint-Exupery High School, students and their families were still incredulous over the incident as they pay tribute to victims on Wednesday evening. Dozens of candles were also lit alongside near the site of the disaster with notes saying, "Thoughts with the students and pupils" and "Thoughts with the families, stay strong."
A boy named Alain is still in shock toward what happened as he shared, "This outing takes place several times a year, with the same instructors, and there have never been any problems."
French President Francois Hollande also offered his sincere condolences to the families of those who died saying "the solidarity of the whole nation" is with them.
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