After an avalanche in Lech/Zürs – safety search ended

This was completed at noon, and as expected, no other buried persons were discovered. For the time being, there was no explanation as to why an avalanche went off on a slope on Sunday. This question should be clarified in the next few days. A skier was seriously injured in the avalanche.

The casualty from Germany was partially buried and flown to the clinic in Innsbruck after being rescued. “He is in the intensive care unit with very serious injuries, but his condition is stable,” said Tirol Kliniken GmbH when asked by the APA. All other ski guests involved in the avalanche – according to Hermann Fercher from Lech/Zürs-Tourism, they come from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bosnia, Croatia and the USA – suffered only minor injuries or remained unharmed. In view of the situation, Fercher again spoke of great luck.

Although no one has been missing since Sunday evening, a final security search on Monday should definitely give the all-clear. First, a helicopter flew over the avalanche cone to record possible signals from an avalanche transceiver. A search was then carried out with avalanche dogs and probes.

At noon the search was completed with the expected and hoped-for result – no more buried subjects. Mountain rescue and army, avalanche dogs and helicopters were deployed.

At first, the question of how the avalanche on ski slope no. 134 (Balmen) could have come about had to remain unanswered. The runway was buried over a length of 500 to 600 meters. “The fact is that in the morning the blast was carried out exactly at the point of the avalanche,” said Fercher. Nevertheless, apparently not all the snow had gone. The fact that an avalanche released hours later will be investigated by the alpine police – as soon as the security search has been completed, as Fercher explained. “The alpine police will carry out further investigations into the cause of the accident in the next few days,” the police said. Possible factors for triggering the avalanche could have been people, animals or solar radiation. In Lech/Zürs there was a significant avalanche danger of level three on the five-level danger scale on Sunday.

Fercher could not explain why the skiers did not contact the police or lift managers immediately after the avalanche on Sunday. “It was probably a mixture of shock and carelessness,” he surmised. He appealed to all winter sports enthusiasts to report as soon as possible in a case like Sunday. Because that did not happen, up to ten avalanche victims were suspected in Lech/Zürs for hours on Sunday. The dimension of the search operation was correspondingly large – more than 200 people from mountain rescue and various blue light organizations were on duty, seven helicopters completed numerous flights. In terms of costs, there will probably be a split between the municipality and the state, says Fercher.