Three airlifted after avalanche (From Hampshire Chronicle)
When news happens, text CHRON and your photos or videos to 80360. Or contact us by email & phone.
Three airlifted after avalanche
4:42pm Thursday 14th February 2013 in National News © Press Association 2013
An avalanche has been reported in the Chalamain Gap area of the Cairngorms
Three people have been rescued after being caught up in an avalanche in the Scottish Highlands.
They were airlifted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, police said.
The avalanche was reported shortly after 12.30pm on Thursday in the Chalamain Gap area of the Cairngorms, said Northern Constabulary.
Earlier this week a hillwalker died during an expedition with a mountaineering club in the Cairngorms. Graham Connell, 31, from Castleford, West Yorkshire, was found dead in the Jacob's Ladder area on Monday, following a large-scale search for him and five other people who were reported overdue on Sunday afternoon.
The other members in the party, who were unhurt, were picked up by an RAF rescue helicopter after being located by Braemar Mountain Rescue Team on a hill near Carn Tarsuinn.
The search, co-ordinated by Northern Constabulary and Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team, involved more than 100 people. The walkers were part of a larger group of 35 people visiting the Highlands.
In a separate incident earlier this month, three men survived falling 150 metres (492ft) in an avalanche in the Coire an t-Sneachda area of the Cairngorms. The men, who were wearing helmets, were airlifted to hospital with leg injuries. The avalanche, on February 2, was the second in the region that day.
In January, four people were killed in an avalanche in Glencoe. Hospital doctor Rachel Majumdar, 29; PhD student Tom Chesters, 28; Christopher Bell, 24, also a PhD student; and 25-year-old junior doctor Una Finnegan died after they were caught up in an avalanche on January 19.
