Avalanche buries street in Austria ski area
An avalanche fell on a street in an Alpine town in Austria, close to many ski resorts, covering the roadway in three to four meters of snow, but no one was hurt, Austrian police said Tuesday. The avalanche happened at 10:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. ET) in the town of Imst, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Innsbruck, said a spokesman for the Austrian Federal Police in Innsbruck, who declined to be named. Imst is in the western Austrian province of Tirol, popular with skiers in winter months. The snow fell on a 100-meter-long stretch of road, the spokesman said, adding that search teams found no people or vehicles buried underneath. The incident occurred after Austria's avalanche monitoring agency warned Tuesday of a "substantial" risk of snow slides above 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) following heavy rainfall across the region, The Associated Press reported. Avalanches are common in the Alps during the spring thaw as slopes become unstable, but they mostly occur away from populated areas. |
