9 Skiers Die as Avalanche Rumbles Down Mountain in British Columbia

A 250-foot-wide avalanche killed nine skiers as it thundered down a peak in the rugged Purcell Mountains of British Columbia, a spokesman for the firm organizing the trip said Wednesday.

An American, four Britons, two French people, a German and a Mexican died in what is believed to be the worst such accident in Canadian history. The incident has sparked calls for a government clampdown on an expensive, high-risk sport called helicopter skiing, which currently is unregulated.

The victims were among a group of 13 tourists lifted by helicopter to a mountaintop to ski on virgin snow in an area considered the best in the world for the sport.

Canadian Mountain Holidays spokesman Martin von Neudegg said the company could not release the names of the dead, whose bodies were recovered one hour after the accident, which occurred Tuesday afternoon.

Von Neudegg said 10 of the 13 were caught by the advancing wall of snow near the Bugaboo ski lodge, 125 miles west of the resort community of Banff, Alberta.

The company spokesman said the two-foot-deep avalanche started at 7,000 feet. “The point of fracture was well above where the group was skiing,” he said.

The 13 skiers were on a one-week vacation, costing nearly $4,000 per person, in a series of peaks known as the Bugaboos. Their group was the second to ski down the mountain that day.