40 years ago, the Tyrolean community of Axams in the low mountain range near Innsbruck experienced a nightmare. The small village stream became the great destroyer. Eyewitness and chronicler Walter Rampl clearly remembers that July day in 1983 when the flood broke out.
The storms of the past few days have brought back bad memories in Axams. Walter Rampl vividly remembers the dramatic events of July 4, 1983. Not only because he archived photos from that time for the community. Rampl is a contemporary witness himself and has also collected reports from other villagers: “Many report that during a severe thunderstorm they still feel the fear of that time.”
Protective dam reaches its limits
It was a Monday evening: the sky was open over the Lizum and a strong storm with hail was falling. The Axamer Bach swells in a short time into a swirling river. The unpredictability of the creek is well known. Rampl: “Two years earlier, a dam with a retention basin had already been built.” But this Monday, security measures soon reached their limits.
Iron pipes are swept away by the water
The Axamer Bach is unstoppable. He races and pulls metres-long iron pipes with him, which are already on the bank for the constant stream control. An unstoppable avalanche of mud, stones and anything else that swallows up the water rolls into the village. “It was a hell of a noise. People came to see what was going on. Nobody expected what happened next,” Rampl reports about the blockage of an iron pipe on the village square bridge and the consequences.
The water finds a new way and overflows its banks. Cars are swept away, houses are piled high, fields are flooded. The primal power of nature hits parts of the village with full force. “Miraculously, no one was injured,” says the local chronicler. Property damage is estimated at 50 million schillings. Everyone helps to rebuild and overcome the shock. The memory remains. A photo exhibition in the foyer of the community center provides information about the catastrophe 40 years ago. It is freely accessible.
Source: Krone
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