The exit turned into a nightmare.
A professional speleologist who supervised an outing of college students, Thursday in a cave in Isère, was found dead by the rescue after a rise in water, the other participants being safe and sound, announced the prefecture.
Three adults were stuck underground.
The other two, a second professional caver and a teacher, were rescued.
The students who took part in the visit, enrolled in fifth grade in a college in Saint-Ismier (Isère), had been able to leave in time beforehand.
At the end of the morning, during its ascent to the surface, the group was surprised by the rising waters in the Cuves de Sassenage, a cave near Grenoble.
The adults got all the kids out but got stuck underground.
Investigation into the circumstances of the accident
An evacuation operation was launched "as soon as a favorable weather window presented itself", after 7:30 p.m., the prefecture said in a press release.
"During their progress, the rescuers discovered a body identified as that of one of the two guides," she adds.
The teacher and the second guide, refugees in an underground cavity, were found safe and sound, and brought to the surface.
The Grenoble public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the circumstances of the accident.
The intervention mobilized the Group of reconnaissance and intervention in perilous environments (Grimp), the firefighters and the cave rescue of Isère, the CRS Alpes, the SAMU, the Platoon of high mountain gendarmerie (PGHM) as well as the Isère gendarmerie group.
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