Hundreds of skiers had to be rescued by helicopter on Christmas Eve after chairlifts at two different resorts in the French Alps broke down.
Dramatic video shows skiers at the SuperDevoluy resort in Dévoluy hanging beneath a helicopter near a motionless chairlift. One of the resort’s chairlifts broke down around 1 p.m. local time on Tuesday due to an electrical problem with one of the motors, Nouvelle Republique reported.
About 240 skiers were evacuated from the lift at around 5pm local time at the resort in France’s Southern Alps, where altitudes range from 1,800 to 2,400 meters above sea level. No one was injured, Le Monde reports.
In Savoie, also in the French Alps, about a hundred skiers were stuck in a lift at the La Norma ski resort on Tuesday, TF1 reported, in an unrelated incident. The Maurienne Valley resort rises from 4,500 to almost 9,000 feet in elevation.
The rescue efforts came a day after the death of a 26-year-old Olympic snowboarder at a resort in the Swiss Alps. Sophie Hediger, a member of the Swiss snowboard cross team at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, died in an avalanche at the Arosa resort, the country’s ski federation announced on Tuesday.
