A British man who was snowboarding off-piste in the French Alps has suffocated after falling headfirst into the snow.
The 25-year-old British man, who has not been named, was reportedly working in the resort of Meribel in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France.
French newspaper Le Dauphine Libere reported that mountain rescue workers were dispatched from nearby Courcheval around 1.45pm on Wednesday afternoon after getting word of a snowboarder being found off piste.
They tried in vain to save him, but he was pronounced dead at the site in Les Allues.
The paper reported he had suffocated after being unable to get himself out of the snow. An investigation by the authorities of Albertville is under way.
The avalanche risk on Wednesday was set at 3/5, but the man is not thought to have been caught in a snowslide.
Meribel was the resort where Formula One legend Michael Schumacher suffered a serious brain injury after falling and hitting his head on a rock in the Combe de Saulire, below Dent de Burgin in 2013.
The French Alps have claimed the lives of more than 30 people this winter, with skiers facing repeated warnings not to go off-piste due to the danger of snow slides.
Jordan Waugh, 23, was killed in February when he fell off a cliff in Oz en Oisans, while a month earlier, Owen Lewis, 22, froze to death after he got lost on a night out in Risoul. Also that month, John Bromell, 39, went missing after he was last seen boarding a chairlift in heavy snow.
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