Five killed in avalanche in the Austrian Alps

WATTENTAL VALLEY, AUSTRIA. This past Saturday, February 6, 20 skiers from the Czech Republic were caught in an avalanche in the western region of Tyrol. Five suffered fatal injuries, reports The Guardian.

The Tyrolean Alps of western Austria. [Photo] Zoltán Vörös

The victims, identified as participants in a “freeride camp” triggered a slide that propagated an estimated two kilometers wide. The European Avalanche Warning Services (EAWS) explains that the avalanche had a recorded maximum depth of five meters. The Guardian reports that the Czech group had been warned by locals that the avalanche danger for the day was rated as considerable.

According to the EAWS, members of the group were equipped with avalanche tools such as beacons and airbags, but it is unclear whether or not the victims had shovels and probes. The fatally injured were buried between 1.2 and 3.2 meters deep. Apart from the five dead, two of the group members were injured but survived and the remaining victims emerged unscathed.

A snowpack analysis from the EAWS explains that a ground-level weak layer was the supposed culprit for the avalanche.

“The changing weather with snowfall, wind, heating and cooling resulted in…increased binding of the weak [newly] deposited snow, which also promoted the possibility for remote triggering,” reports the EAWS. This bonding that led to remotely triggered slides explains the massive size of the avalanche.

The EAWS explains that wind- and sun-affected slopes above 2,300 meters have been recorded avalanche hazards throughout the 2015/16 winter season in the Tyrol region.

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To find out more about avalanche conditions in the Tyrol region, visit lawinenwarndienst.blogspot.co.at

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