“I heard a noise, at around 2pm, and when I looked up I saw the avalanche, but didn’t realise then what it was,” Lucia Novak, who works at a nearby mountain restaurant, told the Guardian. “Within five minutes everything changed—we had this beautiful sunshine, but then it turned dark, cold and windy. I could see people walking down the slope, then nothing. I called the emergency services straight away. I’ve been working here since 2003 and have never seen anything like it.”