At least five people have been killed in a string of avalanches in Austria, authorities said on Saturday.
The government office of the Tirol region said intense snowfall over the last week had led to accumulations of up to 1.5 metres (5ft). Combined with strong winds and weak snowpack below, the conditions were especially susceptible to avalanches, it said.
Tirol police said five off-piste skiers were caught up in a nearly 450-metre-wide avalanche on Friday afternoon in the St Anton am Arlberg area at an altitude of about 2,000 metres.
An American and a Pole were among the five dead whose bodies were recovered after the avalanche, and a 21-year-old Austrian died of injuries after being taken to hospital, police said.
Dozens of mountain-rescue team members, ambulance and fire department staffers, as well as several dog squads, were deployed for the operation.
Late on Friday morning in the Nauders-Bergkastel resort to the south-east, a 42-year-old German man and his 16-year-old son were caught in an avalanche. The teen survived with injuries and called for help, but his father was killed.
In Klösterle in the neighbouring Vorarlberg region, a 39-year-old Swiss snowboarder was caught and killed by an avalanche in an off-piste area, regional police said.
“The recent snowfall is currently drawing many people to the mountains – even off-piste,” Tirol’s governor, Anton Mattle, said in a statement. “It is painful that we have already had to record several avalanches with injuries and fatalities.”
His office said nearly three dozen avalanche incidents were reported on Friday, among more than 200 over the past week. So far, 11 people have died in avalanches this month, the governor’s office said.
“No relief is in sight for Sunday either,” the region office said. “The weather remains turbulent.”