There was an avalanche in the Ötztal Alps on Thursday morning. A group of people was captured. The Tyrolean daily newspaper and The standard report that three winter sports athletes aged 33, 35 and 60 from the Netherlands have died. Another buried person was rescued. According to police, the 32-year-old was flown to a hospital with injuries. There was initially no precise information available about the condition of the second rescued person.
The avalanche occurred on the route to the Martin-Busch-Hütte, located at 2,501 meters above sea level. There had been a lot of fresh snow in the mountains of Tyrol in the past few days.
A total of 17 people are said to have been in the vicinity of the avalanche. Contrary to initial reports, fortunately not all of them were hit by the snow slab. According to the mountain rescue team, the winter sports enthusiasts were a ski touring group.
Given the extreme danger of avalanches in the region, the rescue work was also very risky for the helpers, said the police spokesman in Innsbruck. The work had to be temporarily interrupted in order to blow away the threatening masses of snow on the edges of the slope.
Helicopter crews, mountain rescuers, dog squads and police were in the accident area. Operations manager Gregor Franke from the Tyrolean mountain rescue service told ORF that the buried people probably did not trigger the snow slab.
Just on Tuesday, a gliding snow avalanche was fatal to a six-person hiking group at Bärenkopf on Lake Achensee (Schwaz district). A 19-year-old German was dragged almost 300 meters by the snow, buried and killed. His companions survived the accident.
According to an analysis by the avalanche warning service, this avalanche was not triggered directly by the hikers, but rather released spontaneously. However, it has been warned that avalanches that break at height can reach into the countryside.