Tributes have been pouring in for a Punjabi teenager who died in a skiing accident in the resort of Claviere in the Italian Alps.

A friend described 13-year-old Poonam Bhattal from the city of Slough, West of London, as a “beautiful girl who we were all so lucky to have known.”

A student at the Guru Nanak Sikh Academy in Hayes, Middlesex, Poonam was participating in ski lessons with her classmates from the academy when she fell 20ft from a ski lift at 9.30 am on Friday.

She is understood to have been alive when medical emergency teams reached her, but subsequently suffered a heart attack.

Local police commissioner Francesco Destro was quoted as saying, “The ski lift was moving very fast and rising when she fell. It is possible the group did not properly pull the protective bars down.”

As an investigation gets under way, the director of the local ski school in Claviere has explained that Poonam fell down even though the safety bar on the ski lift was closed.

Director Marco Steffanini said, "There is an investigation in progress to understand how she can fall down with the safety bar closed.

"Before she fell down, she was grabbing for the safety bar and the men operating the lift saw this, stopped the lift...but it was too late," he added.