A tenth person was killed yesterday in a week of devastating avalanches in the ski resorts of British Columbia where the 2010 Winter Olympics will be held.

The latest victim was a 26-year-old snowboarder who police say had ventured outside the designated slopes on Whistler Mountain in western Canada into an out-of-bounds area of the mountain.

The Canadian Avalanche Centre has warned that more avalanches are certain in the coming days.

The body of another man, 37, who died on New Year’s Eve, was also discovered yesterday on the nearby Blackcomb Mountain after a series of avalanches caused by an unusually fragile formation of snow.

On Sunday, eight men who had been snowmobiling near Fernie, in the Elk Valley, perished under snow after a series of avalanches.

The death toll could have been higher yesterday but a snowboarder was rescued after spending three days lost on Mount Seymour, north of Vancouver.

James Martin said he “cheated death” after he became lost while on a lone snowboarding trip in the an isolated area without extreme weather equipment.

The 21-year-old said his optimism helped him survive the freezing ordeal, during which he survived temperatures as low as minus 21C, before he was rescued on Wednesday.

“I thought I was going to get out every single night that I was in there,” Mr Martin told CTV News from his hospital bed in Vancouver.

“I thought, as I’m getting closer to dark: ‘well it’s just around the corner’, but it never was. Another day and I would have just ventured off further and died in the bush.”

Earlier this year the Whistler resort came under scrutiny when 53 people were trapped in unheated cable cars for several hours after support cables collapsed in temperatures of minus 10C. Twelve people were injured when the gondola cabins crashed to the ground.

Avalanches are common in the Canadian mountains, but there are currently warnings in place advising that there is an additional risk in the snowy areas of British Colombia. The Canadian Avalanche Centre said that a weak snowpack is to blame for the fragile conditions.

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Cabal seizes diamond riches to buy power
• White House gatecrashers got to the president