The most recent accident in the Salzburg mountains in particular shows the danger of a “white death”. Year after year it takes its toll: three alpinists only died on Saturday, the “Krone” reported. Despite extensive avalanche warning services, dramatic avalanche accidents have occurred time and again in the past.
It is still a formal act. After the avalanche accident with three dead near Tweng, the public prosecutor’s office is under investigation into negligent homicide. Further investigations will have to show whether there was actually negligence. In the past, there have always been dramatic avalanche accidents – around February 19, 1916. Austria was in the middle of the First World War. In order to be able to be sent into action in the alpine terrain, 315 soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy practiced with skis in Mühlbach am Hochkönig. An avalanche buried 245 soldiers. Almost 60 people died. This accident is still considered to be the worst alpine accident in Salzburg. As a result, avalanche warning services were installed in various areas in the following decades in order to be able to act quickly in an emergency. Since 1965 comprehensive warning in Salzburg But despite these services, alpine accidents continued to occur. It was not until the so-called “Sweden Disaster” in 1965 on Obertauern that a nationwide avalanche warning service came about in the state of Salzburg. In this accident, an avalanche struck a group of Swedish youth. 14 of them were killed. Also in 1982 ten young people and three teachers lost their lives in Werfenweng. Despite the warning, the group broke up and was killed by a wet snow avalanche. But not only winter sports enthusiasts are surprised by the “white death”: in 1973 an avalanche buried ten workers in Bad Gastein. Six of them could only be recovered dead. One of the worst accidents since the turn of the millennium befell several training ski instructors in Pinzgau in March 2000. At an altitude of 2,700 meters, the athletes were swept away by an avalanche around 500 meters wide and 1.5 kilometers long. The gigantic avalanche killed twelve of the ski instructors.
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