BERLIN (AP) — Heavy snow is ongoing in parts of Austria and southern Germany, with several places cut off and the bad weather expected to last until Friday morning.

Austrian police said Thursday that a 16-year-old boy from Australia was killed in an avalanche in St. Anton am Arlberg as he was skiing with his family on Wednesday. That brought to at least 15 the number of weather-related deaths reported in Europe over the last week.

Several railway lines in the Alps were closed because of the snow, trucks and cars got stuck for hours on a highway in southwestern Germany and schools were closed in parts of Bavaria.

Roads into several places were closed, among them Galtuer in western Austria, where a massive avalanche in 1999 killed 31 people.