Mudslide, power outages

Thunderstorm cell caused huge hail in Austria

Huge hailstones, mudslides, broken cars: severe thunderstorms hit large parts of Austria on Sunday.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/ZOOM.TIROL APA (2))

The heat was followed by numerous severe storms in some parts of the country on Sunday afternoon, including large hailstorms with a diameter of up to seven centimetres - almost the size of a tennis ball. Lower Austria and Tyrol were hit particularly hard.

In Vienna, midsummer record temperatures of almost 36 degrees initially made for wonderful bathing weather on Sunday. In the early evening, however, the first dark clouds became visible here too and the first heavy rain fell.

In other federal states, violent thunderstorm cells with heavy rain and hailstorms occurred long beforehand.

Cooling in Lower Austria
In Lower Austria, for example, temperatures dropped to a maximum of 23 degrees and provided a good cooling effect.

Huge hailstones
Pictures showed huge hailstones in the Waldviertel region, which are estimated to have a diameter of around four to six centimetres.

A user on Facebook captured the huge hailstones in a photo - in other places they were even bigger.

(Bild: Jochen Hanauer)

(Bild: Corina Schäfer)

(Bild: Jochen Hanauer)

Severe damage to buildings
A severe hailstorm also hit the district of Waidhofen a.d. Thaya. Waldkirchen a.d. Thaya was particularly affected.

In the cadastral communities of Waldkirchen, Gilgenberg and Rappolz, around 80 percent of the buildings were damaged, some of them severely, the district command reported in a press release.

Severe storm damage in the district of Waidhofen a.d. Thaya

(Bild: APA/BFK WT/ST. MAYER)

(Bild: APA/BFK WT/ST. MAYER)

Over 100 firefighters were deployed to provisionally seal the roofs with tarpaulins. The affected districts were declared a disaster area by the authorities.

(Bild: APA/BFK WT/ST. MAYER)

Tyrol: Heavy thunderstorms with severe consequences
In Tyrol, there were some heavy thunderstorms late on Sunday afternoon with serious consequences. The lowlands were particularly affected, especially the district of Kufstein. There were brief power outages for 8,000 network customers in the municipalities of Kramsach, Radfeld, Brixlegg, Reith im Alpbachtal, Alpbach and Rattenberg. In the latter municipality, water also leaked into the town center. In addition, the Achensee road (B 181) in the district of Schwaz was displaced by a mudslide.

At peak times, around one hundred transformer stations in the district of Kufstein were left without power, according to network operator Tinetz. By the evening, most of the outages had been rectified. The cause of the power cuts was apparently a heavy storm.

Luck in misfortune for Austria's smallest municipality
However, Rattenberg, Austria's smallest municipality, was apparently lucky in misfortune. "You could say we almost drowned," explained Mayor Bernhard Freiberger to the Tiroler Tageszeitung newspaper. The cause was the widespread power failure

"We are dependent on a pumping station with four pumps. The entire sewer system depends on it. As the station failed due to the power outage and it rained so much, the water in the town very quickly reached a height of 50 to 60 centimetres," Freiberger explained.

A catastrophe could only be prevented by the rapid action of the emergency services. "Within around 15 minutes, the emergency generator was connected to the mains and the pumps were back up and running," said the mayor. The town got off relatively lightly, but there were several insurance claims in the stores.

Landslide near inn
The landslide, however, occurred in the municipality of Eben am Achensee near an inn. The road was mired over a length of around 35 meters and a height of four meters. The mudslide displaced the road and the road had to be completely closed in both directions. The clean-up work lasted until Sunday evening. The restaurant building was reportedly damaged, but there were no injuries.

(Bild: ZOOM.TIROL)

Several mudslides also occurred in Auffach in the municipality of Wildschönau (district of Kufstein). According to the police, numerous local roads were blocked by fallen trees, meaning that several residents were cut off from the outside world for the duration of the clean-up operation.