Three people died in the avalanche accident in Tyrol. The snow slab surprised them, even though they obviously knew what they were doing. The situation is treacherous.
Sölden – major alarm in Tyrol. Helicopters fly, mountain rescue in emergency operations. An avalanche suddenly hit a group of tourists in the Vent ski resort near Sölden. Three people died. As it now turns out, they apparently had little chance of assessing the risk on the slope.
Treacherous avalanche accident in Tyrol – mountain rescuer on the accident slope: “I would have gone in there too”
Time and again, Alpine holidaymakers recklessly put themselves in danger. “People don't believe that it's still the depths of winter up on the mountain,” says the head of mountain rescue on the Tyrolean side of the Zugspitze, Regina Poberschnigg, to other excursionists. Recently, some groups had the mountain rescue team shaking their heads; in some cases the cable car was too expensive for them and they started the dangerous climb without any prior knowledge.
A reproach that obviously cannot be leveled against the Dutch ski tourers in Sölden. And not the four Austrian guides either. “If you ask me, I would have gone in there without any headache,” said the local branch manager of the Sölden mountain rescue service, Josef Fiegl, at a press conference on Thursday.
Austria tourists caught in an avalanche with guides – “They are extremely experienced mountain guides”
There was a moderate avalanche danger in the area, not really a major cause for concern. “Unfortunately, things turned out differently,” Fiegl has to say. Yes, in the Alps there is always a residual risk that the four local guides could have misjudged, but that is out of the question for the local branch manager. “These are extremely experienced mountain guides who are out and about every day. I also know these four personally.”
Avalanche expert Patrick Nairz explains how treacherous the snow slab was in Ötztal. “The avalanche continued to grow in size along the path of the fall and then partially broke off like a board. And these wet masses of snow then poured into the valley where the people were climbing to the hut,” he explains. It was a wet loose snow avalanche, 180 meters long and 80 meters wide. It resolved itself, probably because of the high temperatures in the Alpine region. In a similar surprise, an avalanche occurred on Lake Achensee the day before and killed a German hiker.
Avalanche danger in the Alps: Group actually did everything right before the Sölden accident
The avalanche was hardly foreseeable and the group of holidaymakers could not do anything to trigger it. And the timing of their rise was actually considered certain. “At this time of year, visitors should be back in the valley by midday because the danger of so-called wet snow avalanches is great,” explains mountain rescue spokesman Georg Franke at
IPPEN.MEDIA
. The accident occurred around 11 a.m. in the morning.
(moe)