[ad_1]
Kaprun, with 155 dead, was the biggest civil disaster in Austria since the Ringtheater fire in Vienna in 1881, with 380 dead. On the burning glacier in the Kitzsteinhorn ski area, 155 people died 20 years ago, including 31 children and young people up to 18 years old. 92 victims were Austrians, 32 victims came from Wels and its surroundings alone. The other victims came from Germany, Japan, the United States, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Great Britain and the Netherlands. After a 20-month trial for negligent homicide, the 16 suspects were acquitted. So far the facts and figures surrounding the devastating tragedy. But behind this there is infinite sadness and anger. The fact that the Judiciary has not found anyone guilty and that there is talk of a chain of unfortunate circumstances still makes life difficult for many family members today.
See image gallery
Image Gallery: In Memory of the Victims of the Kaprun Disaster in 2000
Fate struck a second time in Wels
It had already become a cherished tradition that ski enthusiast Wels city officials meet every year for a kind of “first snow criterion”. With friends and acquaintances, there were a total of 34 people who also traveled to Kaprun in 2000. After the first day of skiing, the group wanted to take advantage of the wonderful weather on Saturday, November 11, and therefore rushed to arrive early to the valley station of the glacier chairlift. At half past eight the Welsers lined up for the funicular, two men decided at the last moment for the gondola, they did not want to go through the dark tunnel into the glacial region under the bright sun. The other 32 trusted the rail vehicle and drove to their deaths.
17 years earlier, eleven municipal employees were killed in a burning hotel in Istanbul in an official company outing. On a Saturday, almost exactly a year after then-Mayor Karl Bregartner took office. November 11, 2000: Peter Koits was in office for exactly one year, the Kaprun disaster also happened on a Saturday. It was also Koits who provided support to grieving family members and was a role model for his deeply affected employees during difficult times.
On the 10th anniversary of the disaster, OÖNachrichten reported that the horror was not over yet. And Peter Koits remembered the unfortunate day. Koits interview: “There is tremendous power in us humans.”
Steyrer spontaneously helped
Not only two Welsers survived because they used the cable car instead of the glacier up the mountain. A group from Steyr who attended a glacier training workshop with a focus on first aid also escaped the disaster. “The train is on fire!”, The people of Steyr learned of the accident on the glacier. They volunteered to help and did five hours of selfless work. At the moment, the helicopter landing zone had to be cleared of banners and free space to be created for the rescue operation. They helped and at night, exhausted, they took the gondola back to the valley.
Hell of flames in the tunnel
What happened on November 11, 2000 at the planned “Sowboard Opening”. More than 2,000 skiers and snowboarders were already on the glacier when the tragedy occurred in the funicular tunnel. A fully occupied assembly came to a halt shortly after 9 am 600 meters after entering the tunnel because a fire had broken out in the rear of the car. Only twelve passengers were saved. Everyone else suffocated or burned in the tunnel.
In addition to the passengers, the driver of the crashed car as well as that of the oncoming train and three people were killed at the top railway station. While the occupants of the train were burned, the people at the hill station succumbed to smoke poisoning. Hell left only the chassis of the train, the rest was completely destroyed.
The fact that the rails lead uphill very steeply (42.8 percent incline) promoted the dreaded so-called chimney effect: the fire turns the pipe into a chimney that draws air into the lower inlet, further igniting the calls. A devastating spiral.
Radiant heaters caused a catastrophe in Kaprun
In September 2001, ten months after the disaster, the President of the Salzburg Regional Court presented the final result of five coordinated reports on the fire. Thereafter, a combination of several factors led to the catastrophe, the main cause being a defect in a “commercial fan heater”. The device was not approved for installation or use in vehicles. A fan had stopped, hydraulic oil had leaked, the fire had already started at the valley station.
A final report presented in December 2001 by the international tunnel commission commissioned by the Ministry of Transport stated that even after the 155 deaths in Kaprun, there was no reason to ban or close the underground funiculars. However, due to the new risk profile that was only recognized as a result of the events at Kaprun and subsequent investigations carried out in France and Switzerland, experts advised that additional safety measures be taken on existing systems. The commission mentions the installation of automatic extinguishing devices in individual facilities in danger of fire (electrical boxes, fans, motors, batteries, etc.) as possible measures to prevent a fire from developing in the vehicle itself. In addition, the installation of emergency lighting for a future system concept in a cable car tunnel is useful for salvage, the seven-person expert commission emphasized in its report.
The second Kapruner Bahn was also a time bomb
In March 2002, an explosives study showed that hydraulic oil had also leaked on the second track and leaked onto the wall of the car next to the heater. The most serious cable car accident in Austrian history was mainly due to three construction errors, said expert Klaus Hellmich. First, the car body was made of plastic instead of metal. As a result, there were flammable materials and toxic gases that suffocated the victims. Second, the doors could not be opened from the inside, and third, there were no fire extinguishers in the car. For these errors, which also affect the second train, the cable car authority and the cable car manufacturers are responsible, according to the expert opinion of the expert organization Dekra. The report was commissioned by the Salzburg Prosecutor’s Office.
Trials with acquittals and compensations
The guilty trial began in Salzburg in 2002. 16 people were charged. In 2004, the 16 suspects were acquitted. None of the defendants is directly guilty, he said in the explanatory memorandum. All then applicable provisions had been met. A faulty radiant heater in the driver’s cab was found to be the cause of the disaster. However, none of the accused could be charged for the material defect.
The Salzburg prosecutor appealed against eight of the acquittals. In second instance, before the Higher Regional Court of Linz, the technical director of the Gletscherbahnen Kaprun, the director of operations, the two employees of the Swoboda company, in charge of assembling the wagons of the incident, two employees of the Association for Technical Inspection (TÜV) and two experts from the Ministry of Transport – Experts in cable cars and railways. A year later, in 2005, shortly before the fifth anniversary of the fire disaster, the 9th Senate of Judges of the Linz Higher Regional Court also confirmed these eight acquittals.
In 2011, victims’ lawyer Gerhard Podovsovnik was also fired with his complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg. The lawyer has tried to reopen the process because, in his opinion, a fair criminal process has not been carried out in Austria. This complaint was rejected.
On November 7, 2007, the Glacier Railroad catastrophe, which on November 11, 2000, had claimed 155 lives, finally ended under criminal law. The costs of the process were around 2.5 million euros. 2008 was after a Years of legal dispute over compensation payments to the victims’ relatives paid a settlement amount of 13.9 million euros.
OÖN-Christkindl does not forget the orphans of Kaprun
For many years since the Kaprun disaster, the OÖNachrichten have helped the families of Kaprun victims in Upper Austria. Sandra and Jutta lost their parents in hell fire. “We fight every day,” Herta K. said in an interview with OÖN Christkindl in 2005. She and her husband had only one goal: to get back to supporting their two granddaughters. The retired couple fought for custody and paid off their son’s home debts so they wouldn’t have to sell it. Later, the granddaughters should be able to decide for themselves what happens to “Mom and Dad’s house.”
Over time, emotional pain no longer weighs as much as it did in the beginning. “You forget a bit and you feel like everything is getting easier,” said the retiree. The family lives economically on a pension and an orphan’s pension. What remains is not much, but the 67-year-old is far from complaining. “I am grateful for every day that I can do something for you.” Her biggest concern is another: not being able to care for the girls long enough. However, the financial burden is pressing, which is why OÖN-Christkindl helped in 2005.
Sea of lights and tears in Kaprun
“It is our responsibility to never forget this event,” said Kaprun Mayor Norbert Karlsböck on November 11, 2010, on a cold and wet November day. It was the 10th anniversary of the disaster, on which the relatives of the victims from Upper Austria and OÖNachrichten also traveled to Kaprun to commemorate.
See image gallery
Image Gallery: Commemoration of the Kaprun Disaster on November 11, 2000
Image: Volker Weihbold
Oldest alpine metro
The Kitzsteinhorn funicular was the world’s first alpine underground railway. On March 20, 1974, the two trains took skiers to the glacial region above Kaprun for the first time. The glacier express to the Alpincenter in the Kitzsteinhorn exceeds an altitude difference of 1534 meters (the valley station is at 911 meters). The Schmiedinger Kees, dominated by the 3,203-meter-high Kitzsteinhorn, belongs to the Glockner group in Hohe Tauern.
