Ski

Hundreds of British tourists have disappeared during the night from the Swiss ski resort Verbier despite being in mandatory quarantine because of the new Covid-19 variant.

Authorities had identified 420 guests from Britain who had been quarantined before Christmas, he said. About 50 left immediately, he said, and of the 370 others, less than a dozen were still there on Sunday.

Some have since reported back from France, Jean-Marc Sandoz, spokesman for the municipality of Bagnes, to which Verbier belongs, said today.

Although Austria is once again in lockdown, many ski lifts were allowed to open. After a rather quiet start on Christmas Eve and the first holiday, it became more crowded in the ski resorts from the second holiday onwards - too crowded in times of the Covid-19 pandemic, where keeping your distance is the order of the day.

On Sunday, so many people made their way towards the slopes that even some ski resorts pulled the emergency brake and closed down. Already in the morning, the ski resorts at Hauser Kaibling as well as St. Jakob im Walde in Styria closed due to overcrowding, further guests were not allowed to arrive.