Eight people have died in avalanches in Austria in one weekend.
Urs Flueeler/KEYSTONE/dpa
It is the deadliest weekend of the season so far: three avalanches have claimed the lives of eight people in the Austrian Alps. Authorities urgently warn of further accidents.
It is the deadliest avalanche weekend in the Alps so far this season: according to the authorities, eight people lost their lives in three avalanches in Austria on Saturday alone.
The ski tourers were buried off-piste by the masses of snow. Among the victims are three Czechs, as the police reported. The origin and identity of the other dead are still unclear. Authorities and rescuers are warning that the danger from the slopes remains high.
Seven people buried in Grossarltal
On Saturday afternoon, an avalanche reportedly occurred on the 2150-metre-high Finsterkopf in Grossarltal in the province of Salzburg. Seven ski tourers were buried in the avalanche. According to the mountain rescue team, four members of the group could only be rescued dead. The others were injured, some of them seriously.
Shortly before this, a woman who was out skiing with her husband was caught in an avalanche in the Bad Hofgastein area. She died under the masses of snow in front of her husband.
According to the police, there was another avalanche accident in the municipality of Pusterwald in Styria in the late afternoon. Seven Czech ski tourers were skiing in the area when an avalanche broke loose. Three of them were buried by the avalanche, according to the police. All help came too late for them. The four companions, who had not been caught, were taken out of the alpine terrain by the emergency services and given emergency medical treatment.
High avalanche risk in the region
“The avalanche situation is delicate,” continued the mountain rescue spokesperson. Old and fresh snow are poorly connected, meaning that avalanches are constantly coming loose. “This tragedy painfully shows how serious the current avalanche situation is”, said Gerhard Kremser, district manager of the Pongau Mountain Rescue Service.
A large number of rescuers were involved in the three accidents. A total of more than 200 helpers and mountain rescuers reportedly helped to recover the dead and fly the injured to hospitals.
After several weeks without snowfall, around 20 to 50 centimetres of snow had recently fallen in the Austrian Alps. Most recently, a young Czech and a man of unknown identity were killed in two avalanche accidents in the open ski area. The authorities are constantly appealing to ski tourers to be extremely careful.
Despite the relatively manageable snow depths, the situation is sometimes explosive. According to the avalanche warning service, the weight of a single skier can be enough to trigger a snow slab. “Avalanche-prone areas are located in all directions above around 2000 meters. These areas are numerous,” says the warning service’s website. “They are covered with fresh snow and are therefore barely recognizable even to the trained eye.”