The damage is enormous

Five mudslides! A9 remains closed for a week

Clean-up work after the landslides on the A9(Bild: Asfinag)

Bitter news for many drivers, especially commuters: the Pyhrnautobahn A9 near Übelbach in Styria will remain closed until the end of next week! The damage caused by five mudslides is considerable.

On Saturday evening, Asfinag was still hopeful that the highway could be opened on Sunday, but by Sunday there was already talk of Monday. Now it is certain: the closure will remain in place "at least until the end of next week"!

A two-way traffic area could be set up on the Voralpenkreuz carriageway on Friday at the earliest. The repair work on the Spielfeld carriageway will in any case take longer.

The clean-up work on the A9 is in full swing(Bild: Asfinag)

Avalanches up to two meters high
A total of five mudslides have hit the road. Some of the mud and debris avalanches were up to two meters high. Asfinag employees, members of the fire department and hauliers were deployed with 20 trucks and seven excavators to remove the masses of earth - however, further quantities of earth and, above all, water kept coming from the unstable slopes. 

Geologists and bridge experts from Asfinag determined on Sunday that the water had also caused major damage to the highway. All drainage systems as well as wildlife protection fences and guard rails have been destroyed over hundreds of meters. It is not yet possible to estimate the extent of the damage to the carriageway. Also affected is a bridge north of the Übelbach junction, whose pillars were washed free by the water. 

Traffic is therefore still being diverted in both directions from St. Michael and Deutschfeistritz via the S6 (Semmering expressway) and the S35 (Bruck expressway).