In Austria, a man lost his life in an avalanche accident. The 58-year-old German was caught on a snow board and carried several hundred meters, as the police said. He and his family were on a ski tour in the open country. The family was looked after by a crisis intervention team at the scene of the accident.
The avalanche went off around 1:30 p.m. in the Verwall Mountains near St. Anton am Arlberg. The man was buried in the snow and could then be shoveled free. Helpers were still trying to reanimate him.
It was only on Saturday that a woman and her seven-year-old daughter from Thuringia and a seven-year-old girl from North Rhine-Westphalia died when an avalanche broke out on a slope in South Tyrol.
On Monday evening, skiers came together for a torchlight procession in the Schnalstal ski area to commemorate the dead. The skiers were heart-shaped, it was a "silent commemoration", said an employee of the organizing ski school. Mountain rescuers who were on the slopes on the day of the accident were also present. All New Year's Eve celebrations in town were canceled, none of them were in "party mood".
After the accident in South Tyrol: Public prosecutor's office investigated
The public prosecutor in South Tyrol has launched an investigation into five people after the accident, there are suspicions of multiple negligent killings and negligent causes of an avalanche accident. The question is, among other things, whether the ski slope operator misjudged the avalanche risk or whether a skier triggered the snow board off the piste.
"There are traces of variant drivers at the demolition edge," said avalanche expert Lukas Rastner at Rai Südtirol. However, it cannot be said when they came from. Rastner works for the country's avalanche warning service.
The slope operator also commented again and said that everything possible had been done to prevent an accident. "It is always the same procedure, the employees have been with us for over 20 years. They evaluate all possible sources of danger, speak to the snow cat drivers who are traveling off-road and take up every hint. It was the same on Saturday" said Elmar Pichler Rolle, spokesman for the Schnalstaler Gletscherbahnen, the Rai.
He expects "civil law consequences": "We will be held responsible for this." The glacier railways are very well insured. The president of the company visited the relatives of the accident and expressed his condolences.