CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) \u2014 A 34-year-old Frenchman whose job was to check the safety of ski slopes died overnight after being injured in an avalanche at a popular Swiss Alps ski resort, police said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The man was one of four injured people who were rescued after being swept away Tuesday afternoon by an avalanche that hit a slope on Plaine Morte, a glacier near the town of Crans-Montana.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, overnight one of the four injured people died,\u201d said Steve Leger, a spokesman for the Valais canton police department.<\/p>\n
Leger said 43 people reached out, worried that their friends or family had been hit by the avalanche, but \u201cwe systematically verified \u2014 found, located \u2014 these people and rule them out of danger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearly 250 rescue workers, medics, police officers and military personnel took part in the search, backed by eight helicopters and a dozen search dogs. They searched all night but stopped Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
The cause for the avalanche wasn\u2019t immediately clear. Roughly half of the 840-meter (920-yard) long avalanche made a direct hit across the ski slope. Leger said one possibility was that it could have been triggered by the passage of a skier.<\/p>\n
Switzerland\u2019s Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research had put the risk of an avalanche in the area at level 2, which is relatively low on its 5-point scale.<\/p>\n
The avalanche comes ahead of a weekend women\u2019s World Cup event involving top skiers such as Switzerland\u2019s Lara Gut on the Mont Lachaux run at Crans-Montana.<\/p>\n
Authorities said the avalanche was not expected to affect the event, which begins with training runs on Thursday.<\/p>\n