A TOURIST has died after being buried in a 820ft-wide avalanche in Austria.

Federico Giubilato, 41, was skiing off piste with a friend when tragedy struck.

4
Federico Giubilato was skiing off piste with a friend when tragedy struckCredit: Jam Press
 

4
It took 30 minutes for emergency crews to dig Federico out from the snow and iceCredit: Jam Press
 

4
Federico had travelled from northern Italy for the ski trip in AustriaCredit: Jam Press
The extreme sports enthusiast, who would have turned 42 years old on Monday, was crushed by about 5.2ft of ice.

His pal was able to break free from the snow with just a hand injury.

The 36-year-old was then able to call for help.

Mountain rescue services scrambled to the scene in two helicopters, arriving around half an hour later.

Emergency crews desperately tried to save Federico by digging through the ice.

It took 30 minutes to reach his body, by which time the mechanical engineer had tragically died.

The pair, from Bassano del Grappa, in northern Italy, were skiing in Marchkopf, Austria, when the avalanche hit on Saturday afternoon.

Federico, who had a passion for extreme sports, regularly practiced downhill mountain biking, surfing, climbing, and freeskiing.

He suffered a serious injury during one of his wild excursions in 2019 and spent over two years recovering.

At the time, he wrote: “Events sometimes happen with unimaginable speed: in a fraction of a second, you make a mistake, you realise your error, you try to correct it, you realise the attempt to correct it is futile, you hit the ground running, you feel your body no longer responding, the worst thoughts invade your brain, you’re back to square one.

“Time expands and contracts, demonstrating the relativity of its perception.

“The push comes from within, the desire to go back to doing what makes me feel alive.

“The push comes from the waves of affection from those around me.”

Huge avalanches have swept Europe this winter leaving record fatalities in their wake.

The death toll across France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria has already climbed above 60 this season alone.

The disasters are caused by an “unusually weak” snowpack, the total snow from the ground to the snow surface, according to experts.

Fresh snow builds above this “weak base”, making all additional layers “very unstable”.

Avalanche expert Alain Duclos told The Sun that Europe must brace for more avalanches – which will be “wider and more powerful”.

He said: “I’m afraid that more fatalities will happen.”

Federico’s death comes just days after a horror snowslide killed two people and seriously injured three others in Val Ridanna Italy.

Of the surviving eight people, seven were injured – three seriously and two lightly.

A desperate rescue effort was launched after the snow broke away at an altitude of around 8000ft, in the Racines area on Cima d’Incendio.

Weeks earlier two people were killed in monster avalanches in the Austrian Alps.

A 21-year-old Slovakian died instantly when a “slab of snow broke off above him” while skiing off-piste, according to Styrian police.

Elsewhere, a 41-year-old Austrian man was “swept away by the avalanche and completely buried” in the Tyrol region.

4
Federico was an extreme sports enthusiast who practiced downhill mountain biking, surfing, climbing, and freeskiingCredit: Jam Press