Blast to start avalanche kills workers

Two ski resort workers have been killed in Morillon in the French Alps while using explosives to spark an avalanche to keep the slopes safe for skiers.

Their deaths came as three German cross-country skiers died and a fourth was reported missing following an avalanche in western Austria on Sunday.

The incident in Morillon occurred as the workers were preparing the explosives at a height of 1800m in the family resort in the Haut-Giffre valley.

The workers had been sent out to the Lanches sector of the resort before the ski slopes were opened to the public, after a night of heavy snowfall. Skiers had been warned that the risk of avalanche was at four on a scale of one to five. The mountain gendarme unit from Chamonix is investigating.

In the US, at least nine people, including a state trooper who was responding to a crash, have now been killed amid a winter storm that battered the Midwest at the weekend and continues to dump snow in the Washington, DC, metro area.