Vihren Avalanche

At 14:50 Friday 15th April I arrived at the summit of Hvoinati and observed 6 skiers below Vihren probing the snow in a wide avalanche debris trail (between 2600 and 2500m). They can be seen in second picture at bottom right.

I skied down to see if they needed help and realised they were looking for skis and no one was under the snow. I later found out they lost 3 skis and one person was completely buried except for one arm sticking out but they were rescued with no injuries.

Weather conditions: sunny with gathering clouds from the west at 2500m, temp approx zero Celsius.

The avalanche occurred from wind slab being broken possibly 50cm deep at the top over a wide area 100m+

Avalanche area can be seen below, other areas of pirin seemed stable with soft snow cover over a harder deep base. I skied in 3 areas with no signs of slabs or wet snow or avalanches. Todorka North East face, South West face and Vihren East (South East?) face (seen below)