Slovak mountains claimed 40 lives last year, which is eight more than a year before. The number of rescue interventions increased as well, the Mountain Rescue Service (HZS) said.
The mountain rescuers helped mostly Slovaks, Poles and Czechs, the ČTK newswire reported.
Most interventions in the Low Tatras
While in 2018, the mountain rescuers intervened in 2,763 cases, last year they intervened in 2,886 cases, up by 4 percent. Most of them, 1,973, took place on ski slopes.
The mountain rescuers helped tourists, climbers, ski alpinists, paragliders, cyclists and other visitors to the mountain areas in 913 cases, up from 767 cases reported in 2018. The incidents happened mostly on marked hiking routes and easy terrain outside the marked trails. In a more difficult climbing terrain, there were 51 interventions, HZS reported on Facebook.
Skier from Belarus dies on slope Read more There were altogether six avalanche incidents and one difficult cave rescue operation on the Polish side of the Tatras.
Mountain rescuers had the most interventions in the Low Tatras (1,136).
As for the ski slopes, they helped the most in the Low Tatras (1,031), Veľká Fatra (333) and the High Tatras (195), while outside the ski slopes, the most incidents occurred in the High Tatras (276) and Veľká Fatra (129).
Fatal injuries rose the most
Mountain rescuers dealt the most with moderate injuries in 2019, whose number increased by 3 percent compared with the previous year. The number of severe injuries rose by 2 percent.
The number of fatal injuries increased the most significantly: by 25 percent compared to 2018.
As for nationalities, rescuers helped mostly Slovaks (52 percent), Poles (16.6 percent), and Czechs (12 percent), HZS reported.
20. Jan 2020 at 13:22 | Compiled by Spectator staff
