Avalanche in French Alps kills nine

PARIS, FRANCE – An avalanche in the French Alps has killed nine people and searches were under way to find several missing people, the Paris government has said.

The avalanche, which swept down a mountainside in the Mont Blanc range near the border with Switzerland, also injured nine people, Manuel Valls, the interior minister said in a statement.

Valls said the death count was preliminary, and did not specify how many people remained unaccounted for.

A police source had told the Reuters news agency earlier that two or three people were missing.