Man dies in central Sweden avalanche
A 45-year-old man died in an avalanche in central Sweden on Thursday, but his three friends managed to escape uninjured.
The alarm was raised about the avalanche just before 5pm on Thursday, and local emergency services warned the public to avoid the Södra Gröndörrstöten area in Härjedalen as they searched for the man.
He was part of a group of four people who are all related, but the others did not require hospital treatment. The avalanche occurred just north of the Öjön lake.
There has been stormy weather in several mountain areas in Sweden recently, which increases the risk of avalanches, Peter Palmgren from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s avalanche department explained to news agency TT.
"It's a difficult situation now that the weather has improved. That makes a lot of people eager to get out."
Palmgren said recent years have produced an average of one death per year due to avalanches in Sweden. March in particular is a month when accidents tend to occur.
"That's not really because it's the worst month n terms of weather. It's because March is a very popular month for trips to the mountains."
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The alarm was raised about the avalanche just before 5pm on Thursday, and local emergency services warned the public to avoid the Södra Gröndörrstöten area in Härjedalen as they searched for the man.
He was part of a group of four people who are all related, but the others did not require hospital treatment. The avalanche occurred just north of the Öjön lake.
There has been stormy weather in several mountain areas in Sweden recently, which increases the risk of avalanches, Peter Palmgren from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s avalanche department explained to news agency TT.
"It's a difficult situation now that the weather has improved. That makes a lot of people eager to get out."
Palmgren said recent years have produced an average of one death per year due to avalanches in Sweden. March in particular is a month when accidents tend to occur.
"That's not really because it's the worst month n terms of weather. It's because March is a very popular month for trips to the mountains."
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