Avalanches kill at least 11, weather hampers rescues

Avalanches killed at least 11 people over the weekend, authorities and rescuers in Austria, Italy and Switzerland said, as efforts to get victims to safety were hampered by weather.

A combination of heavy snowfall and strong winds led to avalanche warnings in the region, including in Austria, which issued the secondhighest alert level in much of the region over the weekend.

Eight people have died in avalanches since Friday in Austria.

“It was a very operation-intensive weekend for the Austrian Alpine Police, especially in the west of Austria,” said Patrick Maierhofer, a spokesperson for the Austrian Interior Ministry.

The weather made rescue attempts extremely challenging. Early this year many ski resorts were complaining of too little snow, but avalanches — and accidents involving them — are a common hazard in the Alps. Because of this skiers in many regions are required to have safety equipment such as transponders, shovels and retractable poles with which they can probe freshly dumped snow.

The victims in Austria included visitors from China, Germany and New Zealand who died in separate avalanches on Friday and Saturday.

Also on Saturday, an Austrian skier and his guide were caught in an avalanche out of bounds from the St. Anton am Arlberg ski resort. Although rescuers were able to locate their emergency transponders relatively quickly, the search had to be called off because of bad weather on Saturday. The bodies were recovered on Sunday.

In the South Tyrol region of northern Italy, a 31-year-old German woman died in an avalanche close to the Limo pass about 30 miles east of the city of Bolzano. The woman's body was later found under 8 feet of snow.