Death toll of off-piste skiiers in Swiss Alps rises to 11

Eleven people have died in off-piste skiing accidents in the Swiss Alps despite repeated avalanche warnings over the past four days, police said today.
Nine skiers were hit by an avalanche yesterday on the Piz Vilan mountain, of whom five died.
A 31-year-old Swiss man was also killed by the avalanche yesterday while he was skiing off-piste in the Bernese Oberland, and in the same area a 28-year-old Swiss snowboarder was engulfed by snow and died.
In another fatal accident, in Wildhaus near the Austrian border, a 26-year-old skiing off-piste provoked a snow slide that sent him over a cliff, police said.

Another three off-piste skiers died Thursday and Friday.
Up to 1.2 metres (four feet) of snow has fallen in the region in recent days.