Storm in southern Austria: five dead

In Carinthia, Austria, five people died during a severe storm on Thursday, including two children. Rail traffic was also stopped due to the high wind speeds.

SSevere storms claimed five lives in Austria and paralyzed traffic in the south of the country. As reported by the police and the Red Cross, several trees fell on Thursday at a small bathing lake in St. Andrä in the state of Carinthia. Two girls aged four and eight died and eleven people were injured, some seriously. Further north, three other people were killed by a tree in Gaming, Lower Austria. According to the state meteorological service ZAMG, storm speeds of up to 139 km/h were measured on Thursday.

In Styria, Carinthia and East Tyrol, the trains were temporarily at a standstill after the power supply for rail traffic failed due to the storm, as announced by the Austrian Federal Railways. Due to the gusts of wind, dozens of trees near Griffen fell on the southern autobahn (A2) in Carinthia. There were also power outages in tunnels. The important transport link to Italy was closed in several places for clean-up and repair work.

In Styria, tens of thousands of households were cut off from the power supply because high-voltage lines and 2,000 transformer stations were damaged. “In many cases, our colleagues have to cut their way to the repair work with the chainsaw,” said a spokesman for Energie Steiermark to the ORF broadcaster. It could take days, if not weeks, to fix all the damage.