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The body of Captain Sean Thomas was found in Zermatt, Switzerland, on Friday, May 10. A body was found by a police officer of the Cantonal Police of Valais/Wallis while on a leisure hike on the Riffleberg. The body was discovered in the area that was the cone of the avalanche on April 1. The spring melt revealed the body almost six weeks later. It was confirmed that the body was that the missing 30-year-old Canadian.
Thomas had gone missing on Easter Monday, April 1, when a massive avalanche was triggered in an out-of-bounds area at the Riffelberg area of Zermatt. Captain Thomas was on leave in Zermatt and was joined there by his girlfriend Nikky Nagy from Waterloo, Ontario, who also perished in the avalanche. Captain Thomas was an Infantry Officer with the Royal Highland Fusiliers of Canada in Cambridge who was deployed to Jordan in November 2023.
While Nagy’s body was found on April 1, Thomas was not reported missing until April 2, a day after the avalanche. A total of four people died and one person was injured in the Easter Monday avalanche, in addition to Nagy and Thomas, a 58-year-old Swiss man and a 15-year-old U.S. citizen were confirmed dead. A 20-year-old Swiss man survived with minor injuries.
The avalanche was triggered shortly after 2 p.m. on Monday, April 1, and swept away several people, with exact numbers unknown at the time. The avalanche was witnessed and filmed from nearby on-mountain restaurants and eyewitnesses reported seeing four skiers in the area in question. An extensive search was conducted for multiple days by Swiss search and rescue teams with teams of 45 rescue workers and eight avalanche dogs but since only two of the people buried under the snow were carrying avalanche beacons, the search for Thomas remained unsuccessful at the time.
- Related: 25-Year-Old Canadian Woman Among the Victims of Easter Monday Avalanche at Zermatt, Switzerland
In a video shared on Twitter (X), the avalanche can be seen from an on-mountain restaurant on the Riffelalp. The changes in air pressure of the initial avalanche triggered another avalanche in the adjacent terrain.
Avalanche Zermatt
— Johanns (Alpen)weer (@Alpenweerman) April 1, 2024
On that Easter weekend, Zermatt had seen 34 inches (87 centimeters) of snow and the avalanche occurred in a non-patrolled wildlife sanctuary. The area is clearly sign-posted and closed to skiers and riders and fenced off with a wildlife protection fence. The avalanche risk was reported as being high, or Level 4 out of 5, by the Swiss Avalanche Center SLF at the time. Warnings had been issued to avoid the off-piste areas in the resort.
The discovery of Captain Sean Thomas’ body takes this season’s avalanche death toll to 20, just below the 20-year mean of 21 annual avalanche deaths in Switzerland.
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