Bad Ischl gas leak causes temporary evacuations

A major gas leak occurred in Bad Ischl, Austria, on Tuesday morning after a main gas line was significantly damaged during construction work on Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Straße. The incident, which began around 10:00 a.m., triggered an uncontrolled release of gas and prompted emergency services to implement safety measures.

Authorities initially established a safety perimeter and expanded the exclusion zone to a radius of approximately 150 meters due to concerns that the gas might spread through the local sewage system. The evacuation affected several buildings, including shops, restaurants, a hotel, a bank, a thermal bath, and the Ischl town parish church.

Emergency responders, including multiple fire departments from Bad Ischl, Rettenbach-Steinfeld-Hinterstein, Reiterndorf, and Sulzbach, as well as police, managed the scene. Technical experts from the network operator conducted measurements in the sewer network, which confirmed that no gas had spread through the pipes. Once the damaged line was repaired and measurements were cleared, the restrictions were lifted around 11:45 a.m., allowing construction and traffic to resume.