Snowboarder found dead at Perisher after employer reports him missing

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/03/snowboarder-found-dead-perisher-snowy-mountains

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A male snowboarder has died at Perisher Ski Resort in the New South Wales Snowy Mountains.

Police found the body around 11.30pm on Wednesday, less than an hour after his employer contacted police after the man failed to show up for work.

NSW police said he had gone snowboarding earlier in the day and failed to return.

The body had yet to be formally identified.

A postmortem examination will be conducted to determine exactly how he died.

Initial investigations were looking at whether he fell while snowboarding.

Perisher resort said the community was shocked by the death of the man, who was a Perisher staff member.

"It's obviously a very sad day for his family and the entire Perisher community; our condolences go out to the young man's family and friends during this difficult time," Perisher CEO Peter Brulisauer said in a statement on Thursday.

It was the second death at an eastern Australian snow resort in the past week.

A seven-year-old boy, Haadi Akhtar, died after being buried by snow that came loose from his lodge at Mount Buller in Victoria.

He was found nearly two hours after he went missing, just 40m from where he was last seen.

After a slow start to the season, Australian snowfields have received a massive dumping of snow in the past week.

Blizzards last week dumped 80cm of snow in 24 hours in some parts of the Snowy Mountains.

The current forecast for NSW is not as extreme.

Perisher is expected to receive 16cm of snow over the next week.