An Austrian hiker was killed and several were injure in snow avalanches in the Austrian Alps, the Austrian police said Saturday in Graz. The hiker was buried by an avalanche at Brandstatterkogel mountain in Styria on Friday. Rescue team recovered his body on Saturday. A group of seven French climbers were also caught in an avalanche short before reaching the summit of a 3,294-metre mountain near Neustift in Tyrol. The climbers were swept along in the snow for about 100 metres but survived the incident with only minor injuries, a police spokesman said in Innsbruck. Meanwhile in Upper Austria, police and mountain rescue workers managed to recover the body of another Austrian hiker who had died in another avalanche on March 7. The body of a fellow hiker accompanying him had already been recovered shortly after the incident, the Austrian news agency APA reported. -- SP 2341 Local Time 2041 GMT
