Abstrakt
The archive of the Centre for Avalanche Prevention records several tens of cases where avalanches were reaching the settlements, harming the infrastructure and unfortunately causing fatalities as well. Compared to the Alps, in Slovakia there are not so many settlements endangered, but still avalanche prevention and mitigation has its indisputable role.
The most harmful avalanche accident was recorded in 1924 when huge avalanche hit the village of Rybô causing death of 19 people. In 1968, 53 people were partially or fully buried by an avalanche buried while skiing.
Thanks to the tools of modern avalanche zoning such cases in the present are seldom, but still there are accidents when bigger groups are caught by an avalanche. Therefore avalanche prevention and mitigation is crucial part of the Centre of Avalanche Prevention in Slovakia.
The aim of this presentation is to describe which strategies are used to mitigate the avalanche hazard in the places where high frequency of people is expected. Basically there exist two approaches: 1.
Avalanche prevention and 2. Avalanche control.
Both of them are described with focus on the local conditions within Slovak mountain area. In cooperation with Czech TV the movie showing control with explosives was produced.
Marginally the presentation deals with applied rescue strategist applied to the cases where more people were caught.