• The boys, aged seven and 10, were killed by a boulder at 5am today
• Two families were staying in the chalet, and one boy from each died
• Five adults escaped the chalet in the village of Isola, southern France
• Resort was founded by British Olympian Peter Boumphrey in 1970s
• Rock, 16ft wide and 32ft high, bounced down mountainside before impact
• Follows 2009 avalanches which cut off the resort, and hundreds of Britons

Two boys were crushed to death today when a giant boulder destroyed the Alpine ski chalet in which they were sleeping.

The horrific accident took place this morning just before 5am close to the British-built resort of Isola 2000, in southern France.

‘It happened in a chalet on the outskirts of the village,’ said Jean-Marie Bogini, the mayor of the village of Isola. ‘There was a landslide. There were seven people in the house – five adults and two children.’

Deaths: The two children were killed after a boulder flattened this chalet in Isola 2000

Search: Firefighters were hunting through the wreckage last night after a large boulder bounced down the mountainside

Rubble: The boulder tore through what was once a three-storey building made from wood and stone

Incident: The ski resort of Isola is in southern France, 70 miles from coastal Nice

Mr Bogini said the some members of the two families in the chalet managed to escape, but the youngsters, aged seven and 10, could not get out. None of the victims have yet been identified.

Three adults pulled themselves out of the collapsed chalet while two others had to be dug out.

The bodies of the boys, one from each family, were found by sniffer dogs some two hours later, and then removed.

Chilling pictures from the scene showed the three-storey building reduced to a pile of rubble.

Local emergency staff were scrambled to the scene after a boulder, 32ft high and 16ft wide, was dislodged from the cliff above.

Jean-Daniel Montet-Jourdran, of the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture, said the boulder was ‘enormous and weighed several tonnes’.

He said a geologist was at the scene, and other potential lethal rocks were being removed.

Mr Montet-Jourdran added that a criminal enquiry had been opened into the disaster, with gendarmes from nearby Saint-Etienne-de-Tinée involved.

Gendarme commander Gael Marchand said: ‘Three of the survivors managed to get out of the rubble alone, while the remaining two had to be freed by the emergency service.’

Mr Marchand said the boulder first crashed on to a road, and then bounced down towards the wooden and stone chalet.

It was part of a landslide which left the village of Isola ‘cut in half’, said Mr Marchand, who added: ‘One possible reason for the landslide is that the cliff was in a very fragile state due to a long period of heavy rain, followed by a thaw.’

Those who escaped were rushed to St Roch hospital in the coastal city of Nice, some 70 miles away.

There they were treated for minor injuries and shock, and counsellors were also helping them deal with the horror of what happened.

Destruction: The rockslide came to a halt further down the mountain

Disaster: Survivors of the incident were taken to hospital in Nice, 70 miles away

Search: Rescue workers were still at work today

Today police and gendarmes were surrounding the scene of the disaster, after shutting all nearby roads.

Isola 2000 was founded by British Olympic skier and former Army officer Peter Boumphrey in the early 1970s.

The resort is in a basin the southern French Alps, which the local authorities allowed Mr Boumphrey and London-based contractors to develop.

There were always huge concerns about rock falls, however, with the village of Isola and the roads leading up to it particularly at risk.

In 2009 Isola 2000 was completely blocked off when three avalanches fell on roads leading up to it. Hundreds of Britons were among those trapped.

And two weeks ago, two women died when a boulder hit a Nice-Digne train as it travelled past Isola.

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