This content was published on August 18, 2022 – 7:03 p.m. August 18, 2022 – 7:03 p.m
(Update number of casualties and add more information after press conference.)
Vienna, August 18 (EFE).- Two girls and three adults died this Thursday in Austria, hit by fallen trees in a thunderstorm that caused at least thirteen injuries, two of them seriously, Austrian public television ORF reported.
A front of thunderstorms and hurricanes with up to 139 kilometers per hour moved through Austria from west to east on Thursday afternoon and left great destruction in its wake.
In the area most affected so far, a local recreation area around Lake Sankt-Andrä in the district of Wolfsberg in southern Carinthia, the sudden storm surprised many families who were enjoying one of the hottest days of the year. .
There, the storm lasted about ten minutes, with just a few seconds of the deadly gust, which toppled numerous trees, killing two girls, ages four and eight, and injuring another thirteen people, five of whom were also minors, according to the Wolfsberg district’s governor, Georg Fejan, at a press conference.
Two ambulances, nine ambulances, two helicopters, a 10-strong crisis intervention team, and Red Cross, police and fire teams have been deployed to the area.
Much of the region “looks like a battlefield after the violent storm,” wrote the mayor of the nearby town of Wolfsberg, Hannes Primus, on social media.
According to the police, a felled tree was also the cause of the death of three people in the municipality of Gaming in eastern Lower Austria, whose identity has not yet been clarified.
Thunderstorms had already caused road problems in Carinthia and neighboring Styria, where fallen trees and power outages forced some sections of the motorway and tunnels to be closed to traffic.
In addition, a large-scale failure of the railway power supply paralyzed the trains in Carinthia and Styria and left numerous passengers stranded without the state railway company ÖBB being able to estimate how long the interruption to operations, which also affects East Tyrol, will last.
In Styria, where around 75,000 households were without electricity, storms and power failures also affected the start of the Austrian motorcycle GP in Spielberg.
There, the press conference had to be interrupted for the Spaniard Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda RC 213 V), eight-time motorcycle world champion, who this time did not come as a driver, but as a spectator and to “work”. with the team for the future. EFE
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