The accident, close to the city of Goppenstein, occurred because the area is below its second-highest avalanche warning, a stage 4 out of 5.
Printed On 17 Feb 2026
A regional practice has derailed in southern Switzerland, injuring 5 folks, police stated, as the chance of avalanches within the area has reached its second-highest stage.
The accident on Monday close to the city of Goppenstein occurred amid heavy snow and at an altitude of 1,216 metres (4,000 toes), based on the AFP information company.
“Based on preliminary findings, an avalanche could have crossed the tracks shortly earlier than the practice handed,” police stated, including that the general public prosecutor’s workplace has opened an investigation.
“5 folks have been injured. Considered one of them was taken to hospital,” police added.
The practice accident follows a collection of lethal avalanches throughout the Alps in latest days involving skiers.
On Friday, three skiers have been killed after being swept away by an avalanche within the upmarket French Alpine resort of Val d’Isere.
Cedric Bonnevie, who oversees the resort’s pistes, stated one of many victims was a French nationwide whereas the others have been international residents.
He stated one sufferer appeared to have been caught within the avalanche excessive on the mountain slope, whereas the opposite two have been a part of a gaggle of 5, together with knowledgeable information, decrease on the mountain face and didn’t see the avalanche approaching.
In Italy, rescuers said final week {that a} document 13 backcountry skiers, climbers and hikers had died within the mountains over the earlier seven days, together with 10 in avalanches triggered by an exceptionally unstable snowpack.
Recent snowfall throughout latest storms, mixed with windswept snow sitting on weak inner layers, has created particularly harmful circumstances throughout the Alpine arc bordering France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy, Italy’s Alpine Rescue stated.
“Below such circumstances, the passage of a single skier, or pure overloading from the load of snow, may be ample to set off an avalanche,” Federico Catania, Alpine Rescue’s spokesperson, stated.
The avalanche deaths have occurred on ungroomed mountain slopes, away from the well-maintained and monitored Winter Olympic websites in Lombardy close to the Swiss border, Cortina d’Ampezzo in Veneto, and the cross-country snowboarding venues in Val di Fiemme, throughout the autonomous province of Trentino.
