Avalanche Killed Five French Soldiers Near Valfrejus.

Five French soldiers have been killed in an avalanche while on a

training exercise in the Alps.
The avalanche came down close to Valfrejus, not far from the Italian border, where some 50 soldiers were training off-piste.
Search dogs and helicopters immediately began looking for the soldiers.
Last week, two school pupils and a Ukrainian tourist were killed by an avalanche in Les Deux Alpes, 124km (80 miles) away.
A teacher is now under investigation for manslaughter after he apparently led his pupils on to a closed ski run shortly before the avalanche. 

Heavy snow has fallen in the region recently.
About 10 of the military team were immediately found by rescuers and four were described as lightly hurt. But the five who died went into cardiac arrest.

The soldiers were skiing in the Petit Argentier area at a height of 2,200m (7,200ft) when they were caught up in the avalanche shortly before 14:00 (13:00GMT), local reports said.
Unconfirmed reports said they belonged to the 2nd Foreign Engineer Regiment based at Saint-Christol in southern France. They had been training at France's national centre for mountain warfare at Modane.

All the soldiers taking part in the exercises were carrying an avalanche detection system and rescuers were on the scene within minutes, reports said. Two of those found by rescuers were taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia.
"For now the circumstances aren't very clear," Major Herve Pujol from the CRS rescue team told BFM-TV.
"We're still trying to carry out the rescue and trying to count everyone in the area, to know if we still have people there who've been buried."
Police in Lyon are expected to handle the investigation into the accident and Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will visit the scene on Tuesday.
Source: BBC