Helicopters and several teams accompanied by dogs were mobilized for research after an avalanche in Austria on Sunday.
SourceAFP
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UDozens of winter sports enthusiasts were buried on Sunday in an avalanche in Austria, in the Vorarlberg region (west), police said. “One person was saved, while the operation continues to find the others,” a spokesperson told AFP, without further details on their fate.
Helicopters and several teams accompanied by dogs were mobilized for the search. The avalanche was triggered around 3 p.m. (local time) at around 2,700 meters above sea level in the Lech Zürz ski area. No information was given on the identity of those affected. Rescuers had warned this weekend against a high danger of avalanche in this area as well as in neighboring Tyrol, pointing to the fragility of the snowpack in a context of mild weather. In recent years, in Austria, snowslides have caused an annual average of around twenty deaths.
At the end of the evening, the emergency services indicated that they had found eight people who were missing. Two others are still being sought. “On the other hand, we remain without news of two people and are continuing the search,” Hermann Fercher, director of the tourist office in charge of communicating on the progress of the operations, told AFP.