A Scots woman has died during an avalanche in Argentina.
Andrea Marshall, 27, 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.
Andrea was originally from Scotland but is understood to have been based in the Aran Valley in the Spanish Pyrenees, although unconfirmed local reports said she was temporarily teaching at a large ski centre in Bariloche as part of an exchange programme. She was named in Argentina as the victim of Wednesday’s tragedy following initial erroneous reports identifying her as an Irish national.
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. 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 yesterday morning, after he had been buried under snow for 15 hours. Andrea described herself online as a keen mountaineer and ski instructor based in Spain but originally from Scotland.
She posted regularly on Instagram video and photos of her skiing and rock climbing. The avalanche risk when Andrea and her colleagues went out on Wednesday is said to have been “considerable”.
The Bariloche Alpine Club Rescue Commission has said the main hypothesis is that the skiers themselves caused the avalanche. An investigation into the tragedy has been launched.
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond – Sign up to our daily newsletter here.