Italian captures dramatic avalanche footage

The five-minute video has clocked up more than a million views since being published on Thursday by Thomas Ennemoser.

The footage shows the avalanche plummeting down the mountainside, close to the Austrian border, before hitting the valley floor and hurtling towards the houses.

Within seconds snow piles up to the roof of one of the buildings, while the torrent continues along a road.

Ennemoser, who can be heard in the video talking in South Tyrolean dialect, said no-one was hurt.

The avalanche follows heavy snow across the north of Italy, while floods hit further south in Rome. Severe weather has battered Italy in recent weeks, with avalanches and snow storms cutting power in northern Italy over the Christmas period.

SEE ALSO: Heavy snow to hit north and central Italy

Within a few days in December a number of skiers and snowboarders were killed in the region, with deaths in Italy, France and Switzerland.

READ MORE: 'Black week' as two more skiers killed

Watch the video:

<A href="http://video.xin.msn.com/?mkt=en-sg&vid=90537c59-dcae-449f-8976-dfe675d4bd0f&from=shareembed-syndication&src=v5:embed:syndication:" _cke_saved_href="http://video.xin.msn.com/?mkt=en-sg&vid=90537c59-dcae-449f-8976-dfe675d4bd0f&from=shareembed-syndication&src=v5:embed:syndication:" target="_new" title="Avalanche Narrowly Misses Houses in South Tyrol">Video: Avalanche Narrowly Misses Houses in South Tyrol</A>