As every year, the Austrian Avalanche Warning Services have made last winter's report available for free download (pdf) just in time for the start of the new season. It's worth a look, if only for the many sobering pictures and accident reports. The report contains guest contributions from avalanche wardens from Bavaria, Slovenia and South Tyrol. We have summarized a few key facts.
In winter 2014/15, there was an above-average number of fatalities and injuries in Austria. In a total of 210 accidents reported between the beginning of November and the end of June, 572 people were involved, 246 were swept away, 74 were injured and 33 died. In over half of the fatal accidents, there was a significant avalanche risk (level 3). There were 2 fatal accidents on days with low avalanche danger (level 1). The majority (22) of the fatal accidents occurred in terrain steeper than 35°. With the exception of Bavaria and Slovenia (no fatalities), there was also an above-average number of fatalities in the other Alpine countries, with France being the sad frontrunner with 45 fatalities.
Almost a third of the people swept away were completely buried. 31 victims could only be rescued dead (the other two died later as a result of the accident), but more than half were rescued in time thanks to the rapid rescue efforts of their comrades. While statistically only 7% of all totally buried victims survive longer than two hours, there were some "small miracles" last winter, for example a tourer in Gschnitztal (Tyrol) survived 10 hours under the snow thanks to air supply. 81% of the totally buried fatal victims did not have an airbag backpack, 39% had no avalanche transceiver. Particularly problematic last season was the unfavorable structure of the old snow cover, which created a hazard situation that was difficult to assess over a relatively wide area for several months from the end of December. Various rain events caused several melt crusts to form, around which weak layers of angular crystals developed. Many of the typical danger signs in the terrain were missing, and some of the triggering events reached unusually large dimensions. With 96 registered avalanche events (86 involving people), January saw the most incidents. January 31, a Saturday and the first nice day after a period of bad weather, was the day with the most avalanches of the season: there were 18 reported incidents, five injuries and two fatalities.
In addition to many other statistical evaluations, the report contains a large number of impressive avalanche images and selected accident descriptions from the various federal states. People are asked to report avalanche incidents, especially if they know that nothing has happened and nobody has been buried. Others may not know this and alert the rescue services to be on the safe side, who then have to launch avoidable, often very costly search operations. A powerful article by LWD Bavaria points out how many details there are in the situation report and that it is impossible to grasp them if you only look at the website for a few seconds. According to their evaluations, the average time spent on the pages of various warning services is 15 seconds.
