Another avalanche on a ski slope

Avalanches on ski slopes are rare, but if they do, the effects can be all the more devastating. In Lech/Zürs on the Vorarlberg side of the Arlberg, the burial of ten winter sports enthusiasts was feared at the weekend – as reported – in the Tyrolean Imst an avalanche went off again on Tuesday on a closed ski slope.

“You will have to learn from the cases,” said Vorarlberg cable car spokesman Andreas Gapp. But the slopes are safe places. In Vorarlberg and in Tyrol west of Innsbruck, there was still a large area of ​​avalanche danger of level three on the five-level danger scale in the mountains. In Lech/Zürs, the avalanche – despite an avalanche explosion that had taken place in the morning – had broken loose in the open area and had descended onto slope no. 134. In Imst, compared to Lech/Zürs, the much smaller slab of snow came loose on the closed slope itself.

Slopes “extremely safe”

The lift operators are basically responsible for safety on the slopes, and they invest heavily in this every year, as Gapp emphasized. But he also referred to the independent avalanche commissions that assess the situation on the spot. “None of us sits on these committees,” says Gapp. Slopes are extremely safe, “they are the safest places in the mountains in winter”.

The two events of the past few days will have to be analyzed in detail in order to go from a very high security standard to an even higher one. In principle, however, the more than 4,500 kilometers of pistes in Vorarlberg and Tyrol are well secured.

This great safety in the ski areas was also emphasized by Austria’s top cable car representative, the cable car chairman in the Chamber of Commerce and Tyrolean ÖVP deputy Franz Hörl.

Source: Nachrichten