People fell from the northern slope of Sněžka (source: ČT24)
In the northern part of Sněžka, two people died after falling from a mountainside. The deceased was from Poland, the Czech Mountain Service said. The tourists fell down the mountain slope. Rescue teams from Poland and the Czech Republic, including the Air Rescue Service, rushed to the scene. A spokesman for the Polish Air Rescue Service told TVN24 that rescuers were looking for one or two more people, and that Czech rescuers had no indication of anyone else at the scene.
The mountain service in Pec pod Sněžkou received a report of the accident from a Polish tourist around 2:00 p.m. “She reported that several people from Snezka on the Polish side had fallen into the boiler (river) Lomniska. The HS paramedic on duty at the Silesian home confirmed this information. A six-man rescue team from Pec pod Sněžkou and the Polish Mountain Service GOPR immediately went to help the injured,” said the Mountain Service of the Czech Republic. Spokesman Marek Fryš explained.
Three helicopters from the medical rescue service from the Czech side and one from Poland went to the saddle under Sněžka. “After a few minutes of searching, the mountain rescue personnel found two bodies without any signs of life. According to the first information from the scene of the attack, they were Polish tourists. One of them fell from the top and landed about 250 meters down on Jubilee Road. “The rescue team only found the body of the second tourist at the bottom of the canyon,” Fries said.
Polish Air Rescue Service spokeswoman Justyna Soczka said rescuers were still looking for one or two people. They first searched for them in a helicopter, but found no one. Members of the Polish Mountain Service then set out on the ground for action.
“The search so far has not confirmed that there was anyone else at the scene,” Ivo Novak, spokesman for the medical rescue service of the Hradec Kralove region, said at 5:15 p.m.
Rescue work is now difficult due to snowy terrain and weather conditions. “The terrain on the site is very demanding and difficult to access, the slopes on Sněžka are very steep, (…) the rescue operations themselves are very demanding,” noted ČT editor Nikola Dostálková.
Events: Reporter Dostalkova talks about the tragic fall of tourists in Sněžka (source: ČT24)
treacherous decline
“The treachery of this slope is that if a person evaluates it optically, it does not seem to him that its slope is very dangerous,” pointed out mountain guide Radek Linerth. ČT24 said that if a person falls there, he cannot stop on the icy surface. “It will reach speeds close to free fall,” he added, adding that the mountain service in Bec Pod Sněžkou had issued a warning for heavily snow-covered terrain in and around Sněžkou.
The Czech Mountain Service recommends that tourists use crampons or crampons. “Also be careful on the chain road from Sleska Bauda to the top of Sneska. In the upper part of the road, the chains are under the snow cover and do not fulfill their control function,” he warned.
According to Fryš, a similar event took place on the slopes of Sněžka on Monday, but there were no injuries. “The colleagues were helping two Polish tourists and one of the women slipped and went in the direction of the Pomesny friend to the area on the other side of Snieska,” he explained.
Multi-injury accidents are relatively rare in the Giant Mountains. For example, in June 2022, three people died when a tree fell on their car due to bad weather, and one person was hospitalized from the car. The accident happened on road II/252 to Mala Úpa. A shoot about thirty meters high fell and the wind blew there. In March 1998, two climbers died while crossing the Ostman Plateau at Labski Dol. While descending the chhattis, the snow cover broke and they fell down from a height of about two hundred meters and died.
