Avalanche disaster in Tyrol: "Here Galtür. It's a murder disaster!"

Snow. "Daintily accurate little treasures", marveled Thomas Mann in the "magic mountain" - "gems, stars of the order, brilliant magazines, as the most faithful jeweler could not have presented them richer and more minute". Beautiful, also finds the Galtürer hotelier Franz Lorenz on this Easter day. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the mountains are white. Lorenz is on the way home from church with two granddaughters.

A few weeks earlier, on February 23, gems, stars of the Order and brilliant magazines have united to a mass of 300,000 tons and thundered as a giant avalanche in the small Galtür, in the Tyrolean West. 31 people were suffocated, crushed, slain or buried alive. Also Lorenz's wife and his pregnant daughter-in-law Edith. "Gell, Grandpa," says one of the girls, "where Grandma and Edith are now, the sun is shining, too."

"If the sun is shining up there as well," Franz Lorenz said in a TV documentary of the ORF, "then that's a real comfort."

Weeks before the fateful February 23, 1999, disaster had concocted in faraway Iceland, which eventually should also hit the Lorenz family so hard. The low "Petra" migrated towards the Baltic and whirled up huge polar air masses. At the end of January, it reached the Alps, where the moisture absorbed over the seas erupted in heavy snowfall. Actually a blessing for the snow-hungry ski regions, but the rain did not want to end.

The west side seemed to pose no risk

Also in the current winter, 20 years later, there was an extraordinary amount of snow - but not nearly as much as in 1999, when it snowed almost continuously from January 26 onwards. In Galtür alone, the winter sports village trapped at 1,600 meters above sea level in the back Paznaun between the mountain groups Silvretta and Verwallgruppe, six times as much snow fell as usual in one month.

The snowpacks usually do not hold out so much precipitation and discharge themselves into smaller, largely harmless avalanches. But "Petra" brought unfavorable conditions; during the brief periods of rest between the heavy rainfall, the Arctic cold brought the layers on the surface freezing. This created a powerful, permanently unstable snow cover with the danger of monstrous avalanches.

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The almost 4000 tourists in Galtür made the snow initially not much. Mayor Anton Mattle tells of a rather relaxed mood: "There has never been any kind of camp roller." Only when from 6 February the only access road was closed and the avalanche warning service also issued the highest warning level 5, something like oppression spread in the village. As in many places in the Alps winter tourists were also trapped in Galtür, helicopters provided them with food, medicines and new board games.

Petra cut down the Alps like never before. In Kitzbühel, three meters of snow were measured at 1750 meters this February - more than ever before. In the Swiss Davos Klosters ski area, annoyed holidaymakers paid several thousand francs to private helicopter pilots to take off. In the canton of Valais, there were up to 50 avalanches per day, sometimes one every 20 minutes. "Speaking of a century event is even understated," said Charly Wouilloud, head of the natural hazards department in the canton of Valais.

Galtür had previously recorded 57 deaths on 13 avalanches - for a total of over 500 years. All departures into the valley were swept down the eastern slope, which the community finally had secured for a lot of money. "Hazard zone plans are based on the avalanche chronicle," says Rudi Mair, head of the Tyrolean avalanche warning service. And the west side, now protected by massive stone walls, seemed to be without risk until 1999. There had never been an avalanche down there.

First the pressure wave, then the roller

Tuesday, February 23, 1999: On the village square in Galtür there is an afternoon stevedoring race, tourists and locals gliding on curved sideboards across the streets. Entertainment against the debilitating boredom. The race is over at four o'clock, and people are making their way home.

In the house "Winkl" Hildegard and Edith Lorenz leave the living room and go into the kitchen.

At 15.58, the avalanche arrives on the west side. From Grieskogel at an altitude of 2700 meters, the snow mass breaks apart and rushes over the slopes of White Riefi and Wasserlatara first as a dust avalanche into the valley. The still powdery snow is whirled up to a mixture of air and crystals and pushes on the way down a pressure wave in front of him. This is followed by a huge avalanche.

"It was getting dark, the windows were suddenly stuck to the snow," remembers Galtür's mayor Mattle, 55 today, sitting at his desk in the town hall. The sheer force of nature crushes houses and courtyards in no time. The snow roller is nearly 400 meters wide, 100 meters high, 300 kilometers per hour fast and as heavy as "3000 to 4000 trucks loaded with snow," as avalanche expert Mair illustrates. Sonja Salner, landlady in the "Galtürerhof", has heard a loud bang and now looks through the window, as in the parking lot in front of the inn, the cars are whirled through the air. The blast wave literally tears both children out of the hands of a German couple. Later you will only be able to recover her dead.

The living room of the innkeepers in the house "Winkl" is avalanche safe. But not the kitchen.

A few meters between life and death

In just a few seconds, the avalanche breaks up half the village, destroying houses, cars, entire streets. People are injured or killed by pieces of rubble, then buried by the snow masses, sometimes to the death. The snow is pushing through the broken doors, windows and walls.

Hildegard and Edith Lorenz are spilled standing on the stove, the snow clogs their airways, they have no chance. The ski instructor Werner Jehle caught the avalanche on the road. Village policeman Alfons Walser radio according to ORF documentary his colleagues in the rescue center of Landeck: "Here Galtür. It is a murder disaster!"

But the people of Galtür are now on their own. The snowstorm is still raging, the roads are not passable, helicopters can not fly. The avalanche has overturned lanterns and cut off power connections. First cries for help and waving flashlights create an eerie scene. In the midst of this disaster, the survivors awaken from their shock. Mountain guides, firefighters and slope chiefs take over the task force, form sounding chains and start searching.

The first dead can be found in the kitchen of the house "Winkl". Resuscitation attempts fail, Hildegard and Edith Lorenz are dead. In the undamaged living room, the candles are still burning. Municipal doctor Friedrich Treidl sets up an emergency hospital in the garage of the house. He is assisted by a doctor and two nurses, who are among the tourists.

Shovels in the concrete hard snow

Outside Galtürer and tourists dig with shovels and bare hands, but in many places the snow is as hard as concrete. A few buried people can liberate themselves. The ski instructor Werner Jehle, buried for three hours, is rescued with bruises and broken bones - the last that the helpers release alive from the snow.

At 11pm, many people are still missing and being searched all night. It clears up only in the early morning, at 6.45 clock finally lands the first helicopter with helpers and avalanche dogs. Rescue Helicopter Christophorus 5 flies at 7.15 clock, so 15 hours after the avalanche, the first seriously injured in the hospital of Zams.

While the search in Galtür continues, another avalanche kills seven people in neighboring Valzur in the afternoon. Heroes become a helicopter pilot, despite renewed weather warning and flight ban 150 helpers and one injured child flies; it is being cared for and survived in the emergency hospital, which has now been moved to the Galtür tennis hall.

During the rescue work, 22 burials were found alive in the first hours; a small girl, swallowed by the meter-high snow, was the last to be found dead. 38 people died in Galtür and Valzur, including twelve children. 37 helicopters from five countries needed 18,000 people from the region to safety.

On Sunday, February 28, 1999, Franz Lorenz had to say goodbye to his wife and his daughter-in-law in the collegiate church of Wilten, 100 kilometers away. In 2001, two years after the avalanche accident, ski instructor Werner Jehlen, the last survivor of Galtür, married nurse Karin. He had met her at the hospital. Today, they have two children.