Vienna: An avalanche in the Salzburg area killed three people and injured two when they played off-piste skiing, the Austrian Red Cross said Saturday.
The accident occurred on Saturday around 2,400 meters (7,800 feet) in the Lungau district, immediately after 13:45 local time, spokesman for the Red Cross Anton Schilcher told what agency.
Snow buried eight groups of up to 4.5 meters, Christoph Wiedl’s local emergency response told local media.
Two victims were dead when their bodies recovered, while the third died after being flown to the hospital in Klagenfurt.
The two injured skiers were taken to the hospital in the city of Tamsweg.
The skiers who were caught in the landslide came from a group from the Salzburg and Austria regions above.
In recent years, an average of around 20 people per year have been killed every year by avalanches in Austria.
The last two seasons were less deadly because the coronavirus pandemic reduced the number of skiers as a whole.