At least five people have died in Austria due to a strong snowstorm that is ravaging the country. Several roads were closed, there were electricity failures and constraints at Vienna airport, which was temporarily closed.
Since Thursday (February 19), up to 40 centimeters of snow has fallen, which led authorities to issue warnings for southeastern Austria, especially in the region around the city of Graz, in the province of Styria, according to AFP.
Among the victims was a 53-year-old man who died after being crushed by a snow plow in the city of Linz, in the north of the country, police said.
In the Tyrol region, four skiers lost their lives in avalanches, three of them near the ski resort of St. Anton. The Austrian authorities also indicated that a German died on a slope in Nauders that was buried by snow, with his 16-year-old son being seriously injured.
According to the International Association of Fire and Rescue Services (CTIF), Austria mobilized more than 10 thousand agents in a single day to face the consequences of the intense snowstorm which affected a large part of the country.
The accumulation of snow caused trees to fall, causing damage to electrical infrastructure and constraints on railway lines.
Power cuts were reported in several regions of southern and eastern Austria, including the province of Styria, where 30,000 homes were left without electricity.
During the morning of this Friday, Vienna airport temporarily closed due to snowfall and one of the main highways surrounding the Austrian capital was closed for several hours, with sections of that road blocked and trucks stuck due to the accumulation of snow, says AFP, citing the national automobile association (OAMTC).
“Due to the current weather conditions and the critical snow situation”, there have been “significant disruptions to traffic”, the association reported this Friday morning. In this sense, OAMTC recommended that the population postpone unnecessary trips.
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