The second highest avalanche warning level currently applies in Austria. Nevertheless, many tourers and other winter sports enthusiasts move away from the slopes. For three men, their weekend trips end fatally. In Switzerland, too, two people died in the snow masses.
At least five people have died in avalanches in Austria and Switzerland since Friday. The winter sports enthusiasts died in the Austrian states of Tyrol and Vorarlberg. In Switzerland, two skiers had a fatal accident in the canton of Graubünden on Saturday.
A winter sports enthusiast died in Kaltenbach in the Zillertal, Austria, on Saturday, according to a police spokesman in the state of Tyrol. According to the Austrian news agency APA, it was a 17-year-old New Zealander who was off-piste.
A man who had been reported missing the day before was found dead under an avalanche in the Kleinwalsertal in the state of Vorarlberg in the morning. According to the APA, it was a 50-year-old. A 32-year-old Chinese skier died in an avalanche in Sölden in the Tyrolean Ötztal on Friday. He, too, is said to have skied outside the marked slopes.
Despite the warning level four on the five-digit scale in western Austria, according to APA, numerous winter sports enthusiasts were outdoors. Several people were therefore buried and injured when leaving.
As the police in the Swiss canton of Graubünden announced, two skiers were also caught off-piste by an avalanche on Saturday morning. A third member of the group was unharmed. The two dead are a 56-year-old woman and a 52-year-old man. The rescue operation had to be temporarily interrupted due to poor visibility and bad weather conditions.
