Eight of the nine backcountry skiers who were hit Tuesday by a sudden avalanche near Castle Peak in California’s Sierra Nevada range were found dead by responders on Wednesday and the ninth remains missing, Reuters reports, citing an update from the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office.
Six survivors were rescued on Tuesday. The search for the final skier is still ongoing. Either way, it’s already the third-deadliest single avalanche in US history after the 1910 Wellington, Washington disaster when two trains were hit, killing 96, and the 1980 Mount Rainier avalanche that took the lives of 11 climbers. Which, when you think of it, for a country with a shit ton of mountains that get a shit ton of snow every year, the US’s avalanche safety record is pretty damn good.