Eight people died in avalanches in Italy at the weekend and the Italian government is considering jail terms for people who cause deadly snow slides.

A German died on Austria's Pitztal glacier -- the 12th avalanche fatality in the country in a week.

A 21-year-old man who spent a night buried under the snow near the village of Evolene in southwest Switzerland was the talk of the whole Alps however.

The man, who had veered off-piste despite official warnings, was trapped in just 50 centimetres (20 inches) of snow but a police spokesman said it had him in a vice-like grip.

Jean-Marie Bornet, a police spokesman in the Valais canton, said his survival had been a miracle, because of the length of time he spent under the snow. Rescuers said the man was doubly lucky as a helicopter search team nearly failed to spot him.

The man was reported missing on Saturday afternoon by his parents.

Helicopter searchlights detected his traces after darkness had fallen, but rescue services halted the search because conditions were too dangerous.

A helicopter search team finally spotted the man's helmet, barely visible in the snow, at first light on Sunday.

"We were hovering five metres above him, we almost didn't see him," Pierre-Yves Terretaz, a mountain guide and rescuer, told local newspaper Le Nouvelliste.

"We pulled the victim out from beneath 50 centimetres of snow and we had another suprise: he was conscious and even lucid," he told Le Nouvelliste.

"Everyone agrees that 17 hours with one's face buried in the snow is quite extraordinary, it is, according to commonly-used terminology, a miracle," the police spokesman told AFP.

The young man was in hospital suffering from "slight" hypothermia after his body temperature fell to 34 degrees Celsius.

Bornet said no one could recall a case of the kind.

Normally rescuers rate the survival chances for those caught under snow in terms of minutes rather than hours, due to the threat of injury, suffocation, shock and hypothermia.

"It was quite marvellous, we won't experience many moments like that in our career," Terretaz said.

The young skier became engulfed by the snow in an isolated area at around 3.00 pm on Saturday.

"He left the marked runs alone, without a (satellite) detector. The parents alerted us in the afternoon but by then he had already been under the avalanche for at least two hours," Bornet explained.

The compacted wet mass of snow kept him buried in a vice-like grip. "It was like concrete," Bornet noted.

The police official said luck and sheer willpower played a key role in the man's survival. The night-time temperatures were freezing but had eased and the skier had a small air pocket while the snow insulated him from the worst.

Four other people were also dug out of avalanches in Switzerland alive at the weekend, the ATS news agency reported.

Two people were killed in the French Alps at the weekend, while the German on Austria's Pitztal glacier died in hospital after being clawed out of the hospital and then resuscitated at the scene.

Most of the skiers, snowboarders and hikers who have been killed by avalanches in Austria this month have been off piste.

The Italian government is sending legislation to the country's parliament which would impose a jail term and a fine of up to 5,000 euros (7,000 dollars) for people who cause fatal avalanches, media reports said.

pac-burs/tw/co

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