At least one person died and another went missing after a heavy thunderstorm struck a village in southern Austria overnight. Record rainfall has pushed the river over the embankment and separated some communities from restoration work.
The storm occurred overnight from Italy and Slovenia along the southern border of Austria, said Michael Tiefgraber, a meteorologist at the Central Meteorological Geodynamics Institute, Austria’s National Meteorological Bureau. He said it had rained about 5.5 inches over seven hours before it gradually diminished around 9 am local time.
Rivers near Ariach, with a population of about 1,500, flooded in several sections, and roads leading from the village were completely destroyed in some places, the national broadcaster ORF reported. The hydroelectric power plant just outside Ariach was “severely damaged,” the operator said.
About 20 miles north of the Austrian-Slovenian border, the village lacks electricity and mobile phone services, complicating rescue and support efforts for residents, Tiff Grabber said.
At least one death was reported in the nearby village of Trefen, and the fire department said the body of an 82-year-old man was found after being flooded.
The ORF reported that the normally stream Pellingerbach tore Trefen, carrying rubble, tree trunks, and “a few meters” of mud. 100 Austrian soldiers were on the scene with heavy equipment to help clean up.
Meteorologist Gerhard Hohenwarter states that it is the most rainy record of a single event in the state of Carincia, Austria. He said the previous record set in June 1969 was 4.2 inches in 20 hours.
According to Hohenwater, temperatures in June are unusually high in the region.
“Warm air can take in more humidity than dry air, so it takes a perfect setting to let it go,” he said. “Now these thunderstorms are really very intense and very strong.”
The relationship between a single heavy rain and climate change cannot be immediately elicited, but scientists may try to do so by conducting what is known as attribution within the next few weeks or months. Maybe.
Last year, after a deadly summer flood struck Germany and Belgium, scientists discovered that the record rainfall that led to the flood was a 400-year event. So, in every year, the chances of such a heavy rain were 1/400. Occurs in the area.
Analysis shows that, although rare, such events can occur 1.2 to 9 times more often than they were more than a century ago, due to the release of heat-trapping gases from human activity.
Christine Hauser reported from London and Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin.