West Flemings narrowly escape avalanche on skiing holiday

A real nightmare for Thomas and his three friends: “When we were skiing down the blue slope in the Rettenbach valley, we saw before us that there had just been an avalanche”, Thomas tells his story. There was about eight meters of snow on the ski slope, which was completely blocked as a result.

Thomas and Bert from Kortemark, Jens from Nieuwpoort and Tim from Wouman go on a skiing holiday every year. After a corona year, they were now planning to fly back in completely. “We were silent for the first hours. The enjoyment of skiing was completely over.”

Missing persons

“At first we didn’t realize anything, until suddenly someone asked for help.” Some people were missing. “Had we been there two minutes earlier, it could just as well have happened to us.”

The four friends immediately started digging to retrieve victims from under the snow. “Fifteen minutes later we found a person, after two hours four people have already been found.” The other missing people were too deep in the snow. Rescue services then took over their work. The five missing persons have since been found alive.