In the early Saturday afternoon there was an avalanche with serious consequences in Salzburg’s Tweng: A young, eleven-person ski touring group stepped off a mega-slab of snow on the Lackenspitze. Two of the winter sports enthusiasts aged 19 and 24 could only be recovered dead. The third victim (19) died in the evening in a Klagenfurt hospital. All victims come from Upper Austria.
The fresh snow of the past few days was fatal for a group of ski tourers in Tweng (Lungau) on Saturday. In the early afternoon, the young winter sports enthusiasts (all under 30) from Pongau, Ennstal and Upper Austria triggered an extremely large avalanche on the ascent to the Lackenspitze (2,459 meters), just below the summit, reports Hannes Kocher, district manager of the mountain rescue in Lungau. The slab of snow, around 200 meters wide and sometimes 4.5 meters deep, caught the young troop. “Eight of the tourers were partially buried, three got completely under the snow,” reports Kocher. At around 1:45 p.m., the group dropped the emergency call. Five helicopters and around 120 rescuers from mountain rescue, ambulance and alpine police rushed towards the scene of the accident, which is located in a terrain that is a good 40 degrees steep – the municipal office was converted into an operations center at short notice only to be recovered dead. The third athlete who came under the snow masses could initially be reanimated and brought to the Klagenfurt hospital. There the athlete died of his serious injuries in the evening. Two other group members were taken to Tamsweg hospital. The mission was over after a good five hours, and a crisis intervention team looked after the uninjured and relatives. Avalanche warning level 3 (significant) was in effect in the area. The wind is likely to have provided for snow drifts that are considered to be very easy to release.
source site-12