Vorarlberg & Tirol: Already seven avalanche victims since Friday

In East Tyrol, a snow plow was swept away and the driver died. The number of avalanche deaths this weekend continues to increase, since Friday seven people have died in Tyrol and Vorarlberg. The warning services continued to describe the situation as dangerous, there was a warning level of four on the five-part scale.

The two 29 and 33-year-old winter sports enthusiasts, a ski guide and his Austrian guest, were hit by a slab of snow on Saturday around 10:30 a.m. in the open ski area. The search for the men was interrupted because of the high risk of avalanches, and the situation was classified as too dangerous even after blasting. Their avalanche transceivers could be located close together. The search was resumed on Sunday despite difficult conditions, so the rescuers had to turn off guards who observed the avalanche-prone slope during the rescue.

The 62-year-old Austrian had also been searched for since Saturday, he had not returned from a ski tour on the Hohe Aifnerspitze. When the man’s dog came home alone around 1:30 p.m., relatives alerted the emergency services. They found a fresh avalanche in the area in question, and a ground search was initially not possible because of the acute danger of avalanches. The search operation was therefore only continued on Sunday.

In East Tyrol, an avalanche caught a snow plow and the driver died. The slab of snow was discovered early in the morning. The driver was busy clearing snow in Debanttal (district of Lienz) on Saturday morning. After a search, both his tractor and the missing man were found in an avalanche cone. The emergency doctor was only able to determine the death of the worker, the police said.

Numerous new avalanche operations were reported again on Sunday. In Längenfeld (Ötztal), for example, one person was buried in the area of ​​the Geigenkamm and was rescued from the masses of snow. A person buried after an avalanche in Warth am Arlberg was also rescued. In Schwendau (Zillertal) and Hopfgarten (Brixental), winter sports enthusiasts were able to free themselves from the masses of snow. Further avalanche operations in Sölden and in the Kleinwalsertal ran at noon, according to the control centers, whether there were buried people was initially unclear.

In Tyrol and Vorarlberg there were numerous avalanches on Saturday, 30 were reported from Tyrol alone, eleven of them involving people. In Kaltenbach (Zillertal) a 17-year-old New Zealander died under an avalanche, in Kleinwalsertal a 55-year-old German who had been missing since Friday evening was found dead under snow masses. A 32-year-old Chinese freerider died in an avalanche in Tyrol on Friday.

Experts from the warning services from both federal states appealed to winter sports enthusiasts to exercise great caution. Inexperienced skiers should not leave the slopes at the moment.