You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (March 2021) Click for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at :de:Lawinenwinter 1951; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Lawinenwinter 1951}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

The Winter of Terror was a three-month period during the winter of 1950–1951 during which an unprecedented number of avalanches took place in the Alps in Switzerland, Austria and Italy.^[1][2] The series of 649 avalanches killed over 265 people and caused large amounts of damage to residential and other human-made structures.^{[3][unreliable source?]}.

Damage and casualtiesedit

Austria suffered the most damage and loss of human life with 135 killed and many villages destroyed.^[4] Thousands of acres of economically valuable forest in both Austria and Switzerland, were also damaged during the period.^[2]

The Valais canton of Switzerland suffered 92 human deaths, approximately 500 cattle deaths, and destruction of 900 human-made structures. As in Austria, economically important forests were also damaged during the period.^[5]

The Swiss town of Andermatt in the Adula Alps was hit by six avalanches within a 60-minute period, resulting in 13 deaths.^[6]

Causesedit

The period is thought to have been the result of atypical weather conditions in the Alps: high precipitation due to the meeting of an Atlantic warm front with a polar cold front resulted in 3–4.5 metres of snow being deposited in a two- to three-day period. More than 600 buildings were destroyed and over 40,000 people were buried under snow.^[5]

Referencesedit