Storms in Austria cause chaos: mudslides take cars with them - several injured and one missing
Created: 07/23/2022, 22:37
The village of Fulpmes in the Stubaital in Tyrol: A car was swept away by a mudslide during a storm and is now destroyed on the side of the road.
© Zeitungsfoto.At/Daniel Liebl/APA/dpa +++ dpa picture radio +++
In the Stubaital holiday region in Tyrol, there were several mudslides on Friday evening due to storms.
Two people were injured and one person is still missing.
Fulpmes/Stubaital – Several people were injured in storms in Austria.
In Fulpmes in the Stubaital near Innsbruck, two people were swept away in their car by a mudslide.
The fire brigade was able to free the two injured people from the vehicle at the last minute and take them to a clinic, as the Tyrol state police announced on Saturday.
The mudslide buried another vehicle and swept it away, the driver is still missing.
It is the local pastor.
The fire brigade manages to save two injured people after a storm in Austria: "Dramatic rescue"
Due to storms with heavy rain and hail, there was an accident in the Fulpmes municipality on Friday evening.
In the village in the Stubaital, a large mudflow went off, which buried adjacent streets over a length of about 100 meters.
Eyewitnesses had stated that they had seen two vehicles in the area of the mudflow, which is why emergency services were looking for the buried people.
The first vehicle and two vehicle occupants were pushed a few meters down the valley, the police said on Saturday.
The occupants, a 26-year-old Slovak and a 24-year-old Austrian, were rescued with unspecified injuries and taken to the UNI Clinic in Innsbruck.
The district fire inspector for Innsbruck Land, Michael Neuner, described the rescue work to
ORF Tirol
as dramatic.
It was also dangerous for the emergency services because "the stream was still dammed and the water was getting higher and higher." The fire brigade had to work their way to the vehicle with excavators.
The two occupants were trapped in the mud up to their upper arms, Neuner said.
According to their own statements, they had already ended their lives, the emergency services reported.
Storm in Austria: 60-year-old pastor is still missing
The emergency services found part of the second vehicle that had been carried away in a creek bed.
The driver of the car has not yet been rescued and is currently missing.
It is a 60-year-old Austrian pastor who, according to police, was traveling alone.
So far, the search parties have only found the missing person's private belongings, such as a Bible, documents and business cards.
"We found the money bag with personal details in the glove compartment of the destroyed car and realized that it was our pastor who was missing," said the mayor of Fulpmes, Johann Deutschmann, with
ORF Tirol
.
“He's quite a popular man in the village.
The sympathy is very deep and goes to his relatives," Deutschmann continued.
The search for the pastor initially had to be stopped because there was a risk of further mudslides and the Ruetz River was flooded.
The search has been continuing since the morning hours, according to a police report on Saturday.
Storms in the Stubaital also cause water damage to houses and flooding
According to dpa, there were almost 200 fire brigade operations on Saturday night due to the severe storms in Austria.
The Innsbruck-Land district was particularly affected, and there were "several large-scale mudslides", as the police report said.
Both in Fulpmes and in the municipality of Neustift i.
St. and Mieders suffered flooding and subsequent water damage to homes and other buildings.
At least 20 houses were affected in Neustift alone.
At times there was a large power outage.
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In the town of Mieders, a vehicle driver got away with the shock again on Friday evening: around 9:30 p.m., his car was said to have been hit by debris from the Mühltalbach.
However, the driver was able to get out of the vehicle in time and unharmed, which was then swept away by the local stream.
According to the
ORF Tirol
, another vehicle is missing, and nothing is known about possible occupants.
The search will be supported by helicopters and drones as well as water rescue.
Muds occur in mountain regions in particular and can be caused by heavy rain or snowmelt.
It is usually a stream of mud and rocks.