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Channel 4 - program - Avalanche at Galtur

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
just noticed that Channel 4 has a program at 7:35pm this evening of the story of the avalanche which killed 50 people in the Austrian village of Galtur.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Thanks hibernia, I would have missed that...
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Just seen it - very sad when you saw at the end the list of names of those that died, and see those with the same surname obviously part of the same family Sad Makes me realise how much worse the conditions in La Plagne this Jan could have got if it had carried on skiing - we'd wake up each morning and see the snow piles on tops of roofs and cars get higher and higher and wonder what was happening to the snow drifts up on the peaks.
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Very good programme!! Caught it completely by accident. Shocked Shocked Shocking results of the avalanches Crying or Very sad , i don't remember it being over the news. I'm shocked that the mass evacuation in the Apache helicopters didn't cause another one - isn't hovering helicopters used as a method of avalanche control??? Amazing "beautiful" power that we don't appreciate.

I don't understand the mayors decision to not allow people out in the first place, that it would be safer to stay in the town. rolling eyes
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
I remember it being on the news Dan, and that was my pre-skiing days! You would have thought they would have tried to evacuate once conditions really worsened but by then the weather was too bad for helicopters. I think there was too much complacency on the part of the village authorities: attitude of 'there hasn't been an avalanche for 200 years therefore there can't be one' but then it is easy with the benefit of hindsight.
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Quote:
I don't understand the mayors decision to not allow people out in the first place, that it would be safer to stay in the town.

With hindsight perhaps, but some valley roads back down from resorts would, in such conditions, be very vulnerable to avalanche. I don't know the road to Galtur, but I remember thinking just that as I drove up the Pitztal last year... a truly 'V'-shaped valley, hardly any lessening of the gradient right down to the road.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
The problem with Galtur is that they got complacent because they did not have a serious avalanche in over 100 years.

Imagine the scene at 4pm on 10th Feb 1999 - 300,000 tons of snow travelling at a speed of 200 mph and a t a height of 100 meters - a deep valley with no avalanche protection nor walls to mininise the avalanche. And 4,000 people trapped in the village. And it was all over in one minute!

I woulld not be surprised, that if a similar set of circumstanes arose again in the alps that the mayor would not excape negligence. They have since spent £15mil in anti-avalanche defences such as the rows of spikes ( technical term? ) plus a high wall. It is probably one of the safest places to ski in the Tirol ironically!
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
hibernia wrote:


I woulld not be surprised, that if a similar set of circumstanes arose again in the alps that the mayor would not excape negligence.


I didn't see the program you mentioned but in France, where an avalanche hit the hamlet of Montroc the mayor of Chamonix received a suspended sentence for his part in the handling of events.

After Kaprun I'm a bit more dubious about the Austrian justice system.
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Ever driven up that part of Austria?
Every village has got removable barriers on the main road at each end of it.
In case of heavy snow and avalanche risks, the use is to close the roads and wait in the villages.
What happened at Galtuer wa that one avalanche from one side of the moutnain
triggered a second one from the mountain on the opposite side.
Choppers are and were used to lift people out from villages in both Austria and Switzerland b/c roads get closed.
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That may be, but it was an avalanche of astonishing power and length.
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Yes, of course it was huge, otherwise it wouldn't have triggered another one in reply.
Same things, but on a lesser scale, happened many years ago in Colfosco.
As a result, the town council has had a rock wall built, similar to the ones
seas town build to keep the sea away from the beaches...
Same thing has been done in Galtuer.
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