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AVALANCHES IN AUSTRIA and Switzerland have left five people dead, leading officials to warn of the risks posed by particularly unstable snow cover.
Three of those killed were visiting Austria’s Alpine regions.
“One winter sports enthusiast was killed in an avalanche in Kaltenbach on Saturday,” a police spokesman told AFP, without giving further details of the accident in the small Alpine village.
Austrian news agency APA reported that the victim was a 17-year-old New Zealander who was skiing off-piste.
Yesterday, a 32-year-old Chinese man, who was also said to be skiing away from the designated routes, died in an avalanche in the resort of Soelden.
A third victim was found dead today after being reported missing the previous day. APA reported that the man, in his 50s, had died in the Kleinwalsertal valley on Austria’s border with Germany.
In Switzerland, two skiers were killed by an avalanche this morning in the southeastern canton of Graubuenden, the cantonal police said.
A third member of the group was caught up in the flow of snow but managed to escape unharmed, local police said in a statement.
The two skiers who died were a 56-year-old woman and a 52-year-old man, said police.
The rescue operation there was hampered by poor visibility and bad weather conditions, police said.
Over the past two days, intensive snowfall and wind have increased the avalanche danger.
The officials in Austria have warned winter sports enthusiasts to exercise caution.
Despite the alert level being set at four on a scale of five however, many holidaymakers have ventured off the marked slopes, authorities said.
The avalanche situation also led to numerous rescue operations today, which were themselves made more dangerous by the weather conditions.
With the February school holidays underway in Vienna, Austria’s resorts have filled up, after a poor start to the season because of the lack of snow at low and medium altitudes.
In recent years, in Austria, a leading winter sports destination, avalanches have killed around twenty people a year.
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Lets start the PR campaign for increased premiums for this year. Insurance industry do you job and stop moaning.
Every time there’s a natural disaster somewhere around the world we’re asked to dig into our pockets and help out. While I’m not comparing this to the loss of life or devastation of some of these disasters to this series of storms I can’t help wondering if anyone around the world will give a damn about us or put their hands in their pockets for our communites wiped out by these storms. I doubt it. We’ll be left to fend for ourselves and raise more levies to pay for the repairs. No happy endings here.
Despite our current troubles, we aren’t a third world country.
No children will starve because of this storm.
Your comparing apples and oranges.
Actually I stressed that I wasn’t trying to compare our current troubles, as you choose to describe them, to anyone else’s. What I said was that when others had disasters far worse than what we’re currently experiencing we have consistently put our hands in our pockets to help them out, I’m simply ask for a little quid pro quo.
This need not necessarily come from those third world countries you describe but, just as we helped other countries on the other side of the world, there are plenty of wealthy countries on the other side of the planet who we have helped out in the past when they weren’t so well off.
I bet they are rubbing their hands together saying what ever we spend we will triple it next year by raising rates
Presumably all these premium increases will be reversed once the profit margins reach previous levels.
I thought insurance companies didn’t cover damage by acts or nature or acts of God?!
Can they prove that god exists, that it was an act of god? Tot so
I’m covered so, as an athiest.
If they’re going to claim it’s an act of God, then prove God exists.
You prove he exists iv things to do today il give ye a hand tomorrow
They can’t make up the cost because their too busy making up increase in premiums first.
This will be covered by the wet storm and flood peril operative on all standard home insurance policies.
They’ll pull some excuse out of their holes not to pay out for damages. Insurance companies are nothing but thiefs.
Like “sorry but we don’t cover flood damage cos you…… Em live on a fookin island” or something. Storm damaged roof recently wasn’t covered and excuse given was bad workmanship when the house was built…… 12 years ago, if the workmanship was that bad surely one of the storms over the last 12 years would have exposed it.
What gets me is if you have a claim they increase your insurance on renewal,but if you have no claim during the term of your policy they don’t do likewise and decrease it,no it always goes up for some reason or another,then they take away flood cover,now this is like 50%,of your policy,now does your policy go down 50%,no it dissent,its time to tink outside the box on other ways of protecting your property like some kind of co,op and get rid of these insurance parasites.
The majority of affected properties damaged will not be covered for flooding due to the exclusions in their policies as all the areas are have flooded before and once their is a claim for flood in the area all properties in the area are designated as a flood area. So all they will pay for is a few slates
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