Three people were killed in a series of avalanches in Austria on Friday, the police said.
One of the victims, a 42-year-old German man, was skiing with his 16-year-old son in the Nauders-Bergkastel ski area, near Austria’s borders with Switzerland and Italy, when they left the marked ski trails, the police said in a statement.
The father and son were traversing a north-facing slope when an avalanche that was about 400 meters, or roughly 1,300 feet wide, broke loose, carrying them both a distance of about 200 to 300 meters, the state police said.
The avalanche left the 16-year-old injured on the surface of the snow, while his father was partially buried, the police said. The teenager called for help, and an avalanche rescue team responded.
When emergency responders reached the scene, they could not resuscitate the father, the police said. The son was taken by helicopter to a hospital, the police said in the statement, which did not provide any information on his condition.
Chief Inspector Stefan Eder, a police spokesman, confirmed that two other people were killed when an avalanche near St. Anton am Arlberg, in the eastern Austrian Alps, trapped five people. Of the three people rescued, one person was being treated at a hospital in nearby Innsbruck, Inspector Eder said.
“Today we had many, many, many avalanches,” he said.
The Austrian police reported several other rescue operations in response to those avalanches. In Bach, Austria, an avalanche pushed a bus carrying 11 passengers off the road. No one was injured, although the bus was damaged, the police said.
After an avalanche near Kitzbühel, Austria, a 45-year-old Austrian man made an emergency call, reporting that he had been partially buried and was unable to free himself. A rescue helicopter crew was unable to locate the man and the authorities lost contact with him by phone. But the police and a mountain rescue team later found the man, trudging through the snow without skis. He was uninjured.
The rescues came amid a deadly period for skiers in the mountains of Austria. Last month, eight skiers died in three separate avalanches in the Austrian Alps, after heavy snowfall raised the avalanche risk for the mountain range.
On Friday, much of the Tyrolean region of Austria, where the avalanches occurred, was again facing a Level 4 avalanche warning, out of 5 levels, indicating a “high” risk, while some areas faced a “moderate” risk, according to the region’s avalanche warning service.
At least a foot of snow had fallen in some areas, and forecasters warned that the fresh snow was falling on an old and unstable layer of snow, making avalanches more likely. Combined with strong winds, the “very dangerous avalanche situation will persist,” the European Avalanche Warning Services said.
The warnings came after eight skiers were killed and one other was missing and presumed dead in an avalanche in the mountains near Lake Tahoe in California on Tuesday. Six other skiers were rescued from that avalanche, which was the deadliest snow disaster in modern California history.
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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