A British woman has been killed in an avalanche while skiing with friends in Argentina.
The woman, in her twenties, was out skiing with two friends in the Andes mountains near the Patagonian city of Bariloche when she was buried under snow and rocks.
Her body was found around 11pm local time on Wednesday after a search and rescue operation lasting several hours which continued into Thursday morning.
She was named in Argentina as the victim of Wednesday’s tragedy following initial erroneous reports identifying her as an Irish national.
A FCDO spokesperson said: ‘We are supporting the family of a British woman who died in Argentina and are in contact with the local authorities.’
The two survivors have been named locally as Augusto Gruttadauria, from the city of Cordoba nearly 1,000 miles north-east of Bariloche, and local man Christian Erauskin.
Rescue teams were seen working after the avalanche on Mount Lopez, which claimed the life of a British tourist, while two other people were rescued at Cerro Lopez near Bariloche, Rio Negro, Argentina, on September 5
A British woman was found dead after being swept away by an avalanche in the Andes in southern Argentina
The Bariloche Alpine Club Rescue Commission has said the main hypothesis is that the skiers themselves caused the avalanche
A full search was launched, using dogs and avalanche search devices.
They are both said to have been suffering from hypothermia when they were found and brought down to safety from the iconic 7,178ft Cerro Lopez mountain following the avalanche just after 5pm local time on Wednesday.
Augusto was the last of the three people rescuers reached early on Thursday morning, after he had been buried under snow for 15 hours.
He had managed to claw his way up, stick his arm out of the snow and and make an emergency phone call .
The avalanche risk when she and her colleagues went out on Wednesday is said to have been ‘considerable’.
Wednesday’s incident was reported as a D3 in the American Avalanche Association classification – meaning it was powerful enough to ‘bury and destroy a car, damage a truck, or destroy a wooden house.’
The Bariloche Alpine Club Rescue Commission has said the main hypothesis is that the skiers themselves caused the avalanche.
The British Embassy in Buenos Aires told the Buenos Aires Herald: ‘We are supporting the family of a British National who died in Argentina and are in contact with the local authorities.’
An investigation into the tragedy has been launched.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
