British man, 27, killed by avalanche in French Alps
A British man has died after he was buried by an avalanche at a ski resort in the French Alps, local officials have said.
The man, 27, was near the roadside at the Val Thorens resort when he was swept up and carried 15 metres (50ft) by snow on Thursday morning, a local prosecutor said.
The Briton, who has not yet been named, had already gone into cardiac arrest when police officers arrived at the scene to pull him out of the snow.
He was taken to a hospital in Grenoble, in the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region, where he died later that evening.
Heavy snow blocks Alpine resorts in Switzerland and France
His family is being supported by local services, the prosecutor added, and an investigation into the incident has been launched.
A spokesperson for the UK's foreign office said: "We supporting the family of a British man who died in France and are in contact with the local authorities."
Heavy snow has hit the Alps in recent days, with thousands of homes in the Savoie region of eastern France left without power.
On Thursday, road and rail routes were cut off into the resort of Zermatt in the southern canton of Valais and tourists and residents were told to stay indoors in the French resort of Tignes.
Tignes Mayor Serge Revial said there was a high risk of avalanches and that a decision had to be made "to protect people".
South of Zermatt, power outages were reported in 37 of the 74 municipalities in the Aosta Valley in north-west Italy, and a bridge collapsed in Biella in nearby Piedmont.

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A big, red, maple-leaf flag flies outside the historic ranch house-turned-front desk. Pretty soon, he said, it will be the only sign of Canada on his property. An oasis among the red rocks, Moab Springs Ranch sits where Moab's first non-Native settler, Black frontiersman William Grandstaff, homesteaded in the late 1880s. Located just south of Arches National Park, it's now a collection of 20 well-appointed bungalows and townhouses nestled among two springs. Edwards humblebrags that the ranch has been TripAdvisor's No. 1 Traveler's Choice hotel for Moab for the past five years. 'We're independent. We're not part of a national chain, or anything like that,' Edwards said. 'So, I think we drive the big boys crazy because we're sitting in that number one position all the time.' Due to the ranch's small size and the outsized number of American tourists who visit Utah, Edwards said foreign tourists make up a small fraction of his guests. 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