Fatal outcome – 124 people have already died in avalanches in Europe this winter.Image: watson/keystone
124 people have already fallen victim to avalanches across Europe this winter. That’s an above-average number of deaths and the season isn’t over. Where did the avalanches fall and what makes this winter so deadly? A look at the current and past winters.
03/07/2026, 08:16March 7, 2026, 8:53 a.m
In the late afternoon of November 1st, 2025, an avalanche occurred near the Vertainspitze in South Tyrol and buried five German mountaineers. They could only be rescued dead from the snow masses. The accident was the deadliest avalanche in the mountains of Europe so far this season – but by no means the only one. According to the European Avalanche Warning System (EAWS) 90 avalanches have already ended fatally this winter.
Fatal avalanche accidents 2025/26
124 people lost their lives among the white mass – 23 more than the annual average. Most of them in the Alps and when there is an increased risk of avalanches. All of them while practicing a mountain sport and all of them outside the marked pistes.
Since November there have been constant reports of fatal avalanches in the Alpine region. The last one before a few days at the Tamlspitze in Austria, where two mountaineers could only be rescued dead. But why are so many people dying under the snow this winter? Have you become careless and do not pay enough attention to the risk of avalanches while hiking in the mountains?
Why is the avalanche situation so tense?
Europe is experiencing one of its deadliest winters in a decade. In Japan and North America it is also individual devastating accidents come, but the numbers are hardly in proportion to the European ones. But how does this happen? Lukas Dürr, avalanche forecaster at SLF, provides information: “The reasons for the many deaths across Europe can be diverse and cannot be clearly determined. The unfavorable snow cover build-up in large parts of the Alps is probably one of the reasons for this.
But what does that mean? At the beginning of December it snows throughout the Alpine region. This will be followed by a period of low temperatures, clear skies and little precipitation. During this time, a so-called old snow layer forms. “During long, cold, good weather periods in midwinter, the snow crystals in the snowpack change significantly,” explains Lukas Dürr. “Especially when there is little snow. Large, angular crystals are formed. These crystals have few bonds to each other and form a loose, soft layer,” the avalanche forecaster continued.
This weak layer of old snow only becomes dangerous when large amounts of new snow or snowdrifts (snow that has been blown and piled up by the wind) come to rest on the weak layer. “The firmer, more tightly bound new snow lies on the weak layer and can easily be triggered as an avalanche.” These weak layers, as Lukas Dürr further explains, are also responsible for the long-term tense avalanche situation in Europe.
In many areas of the Alps, large amounts of new snow occur from mid-January onwards, which now overlay the old snow layer and thus greatly increase the risk of avalanches. “The start of the winter with little snow was certainly partly responsible for the prolonged tense situation,” as Lukas Dürr concludes.
Avalanche steps
1 = low risk of avalanches
2 = moderate avalanche danger
3 = significant avalanche danger
4 = major avalanche danger
5 = very high risk of avalanches
Therefore, a look at the avalanche bulletin, for example Institute for Snow and Avalanche Researchessential, but it does not automatically make mountain walking safe. On January 17th, three avalanches fell in Austria. There was no increased avalanche risk in the areas (level 2) or only a low risk (level 1). Nevertheless, the snow boards came loose and killed seven snow sports athletes.
15 dead in Switzerland
So far this winter, 15 people have died in an avalanche in Switzerland. Here too, all of them are on ski tours or off-piste runs outside of the marked pistes.
Reported avalanche accidents 2025/26
So far this season, no people have died in Switzerland due to avalanches that rolled down into the valley. A look back at the data on avalanche deaths collected by the SLF since 1936 clearly shows this change. While until the late 1980s people were buried in buildings or on traffic routes by avalanches almost every year, since the beginning of the 2000s accidents have almost exclusively occurred during winter sports.
An outstanding winter was the avalanche winter of 1951. The deadliest winter to date in Switzerland cost 99 people their lives and over 1,500 buildings were destroyed in the masses of snow. But back then the problem was different. Not too little snow and a weak layer, but simply too much fresh snow. Above-average snow fell in November. In mid-January there was around 200 percent of the usual amount of snow in Switzerland, and in parts of Graubünden and Ticino it was even up to 400 percent.
In February 1951, search teams in Airolo dig in the snow masses of the devastating Vallascia avalanche, which claimed the lives of ten people on February 12th.Image: PHOTOPRESS ARCHIVE
But the deadliest avalanche in the history of modern Switzerland didn’t happen in winter at all. In August 1965, a glacier collapse buried 88 people near the Mattmark reservoir, most of them Italian guest workers.
The salvage work on the destroyed barracks camp at the Mattmark reservoir construction site in the canton of Valais on August 31, 1965.Image: PHOTOPRESS ARCHIVE
There were already warnings about the accident. Pieces of ice broke off the glacier and experts warned of the risk of an avalanche – but the construction management decided against an alarm system or other preventative measures. But officially the Mattmark accident is not listed as an avalanche in the statistics because it was a glacier fall. Therefore the catastrophe does not appear in the SLF avalanche database on. The research institute has been collecting all 1,419 fatal avalanches since 1936. A total of 2,166 people have been rescued dead from avalanches in Switzerland in the last 90 years.
Deadly avalanches since 1936
The danger of avalanches comes in different forms. Be it the huge amounts of snow from the winter of 1951, a crumbling glacier like in Mattmark or a treacherous layer of old snow like this winter – avalanches are and remain one of the deadliest dangers in the mountains.