Three people were killed in a series of avalanches in Austria on Friday, the police said.
One of the victims, a 42-year-old German man, was skiing with his 16-year-old son in the Nauders-Bergkastel ski area, near Austria’s borders with Switzerland and Italy, when they left the marked ski trails, the police said in a statement.
The father and son were traversing a north-facing slope when an avalanche that was about 400 metres wide broke loose. It carried them both a distance of about 200 to 300 metres, police said.
According to authorities, the avalanche left the 16-year-old injured on the surface of the snow, while his father was partially buried. The teenager called for help and an avalanche rescue team responded.
When emergency responders reached the scene, they could not resuscitate the father. The son was taken by helicopter to a hospital. The police statement did not provide any information on his condition.
Chief inspector Stefan Eder, a police spokesperson, confirmed that two other people were killed when an avalanche near Saint Anton am Arlberg, in the eastern Austrian Alps, trapped five people. Of the three people rescued, one person was being treated at a hospital in nearby Innsbruck.
“Today we had many, many, many avalanches,” Eder said.
The Austrian police reported several other rescue operations in response to those avalanches. In Bach, Austria, an avalanche pushed a bus carrying 11 passengers off the road. No one was injured, although the bus was damaged, police said.
After an avalanche near Kitzbuhel, Austria, a 45-year-old Austrian man made an emergency call, reporting that he had been partially buried and was unable to free himself. A rescue helicopter crew was unable to locate the man and authorities lost contact with him by phone. The police and a mountain rescue team later found the man trudging through the snow without skis. He was uninjured.
The rescues came amid a deadly period for skiers in the mountains of Austria. Last month, eight skiers died in three separate avalanches in the Austrian Alps, after heavy snowfall raised the avalanche risk for the mountain range.
On Friday, much of the Tyrolean region of Austria, where the avalanches occurred, was again facing a level-four avalanche warning, out of 5 levels, indicating a “high” risk. Some areas faced a “moderate” risk, according to the region’s avalanche warning service.
At least a foot of snow had fallen in some areas and forecasters warned that the fresh snow was falling on an old and unstable layer of snow, making avalanches more likely. Combined with strong winds, the “very dangerous avalanche situation will persist”, the European Avalanche Warning Services said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
