HELICOPTERS yesterday plucked to safety three French skiers trapped for nine days in a makeshift igloo 3,000 metres up in the Alps.
Rescuers said the three men, who ran out of food five days ago and weathered constant Arctic-like conditions, were in amazingly good condition.
Helped by rescuers, Christophe Palichleb, an engineer, and brothers Olivier and Philippe Bourgues, all in their 30s, emerged smiling from the helicopters in the Savoy resort of Pralognan to be greeted by relatives.
Doctors, who took them to hospital in the valley town of Moutiers, said they could have survived three to four more days.
A faint mobile-phone call received on Tuesday, the first contact since Sunday, had revived fading hopes that the three could be saved. The call allowed French telephone engineers to locate the igloo more precisely.
Rescuers said that the three - experienced mountaineers - had built their igloo under a rock cliff to avoid being swept away by avalanches.
The skiers had been out of touch for days and rescuers feared their mobile-phone batteries had gone dead. But they explained that, in order to get the phone to work, they had to walk 150 metres from the igloo and had preferred to spare their strength and batteries.
Helicopters yesterday evacuated a ground rescue party which had been stranded in a refuge by snow five metres deep.
Michael Leidig adds from Vienna:
An Irish couple and their three-month-old daughter are among tourists trapped in the Austrian valley most severely affected the avalanches.
Mr Kevin Maher, director of the Austrian branch of Enterprise Ireland, said by telephone: "It's getting to that stage now where people are thinking about their own security." He is marooned in the Ischgl Hotel Romantic with his wife, Gervaise, and their daughter, Alannah.
Helicopters which were dropping food and supplies to hotels in Ischgl last week brought people from the most dangerous areas of town to the safer area.
"There is talk about opening up the roads on Saturday, but we just don't know," said Mr Maher. "We are just hoping the situation will change and the rescue teams will be able to focus on us eventually."