AROUND 7,000 trees, equivalent to 5,500 cubic metres of wood, fell in the Tatra Mountains National Park (TANAP) after strong winds hit the area on March 15.
“Most of the fallen trees were withered and previously damaged by bark-beetles,” TANAP State Forests deputy director Pavol Fabian told the TASR newswire, adding that the greatest damage to the forests was caused by strong winds in the protected areas of Tatranské Matliare, Štrbské Pleso and Vyšné Hágy.
Almost 450 trees in the English Park adjacent to Betliar manor house near Rožňava in south-eastern Slovakia fell as a result of the strong winds combined with heavy snow that swept through the area, Artur Šturmankin from the Slovak National Museum (SNM) told TASR. The SNM, which is responsible for running the site, has not calculated the damage yet. However, no damage to the manor house itself was reported.
The central emergency staff of the Transport Ministry on March 15 cancelled the highest, third-degree alert on the main road between Brezno and Telgárt, and alerts were no longer in place for all roads in Prešov and Košice Regions, and near Komárno due to blizzards. The D1 motorway near Poprad under the High Tatras mountains was impassable late in the afternoon, but by evening, emergency teams removed lorries that had been involved in accidents along the road, TASR wrote.
