(Updates with details on injured, quotes)

SEEWALCHEN, Austria, March 25 (Reuters) - One person was killed and six were seriously injured when some 60 vehicles slammed into each other in heavy snow on Austria's main east-west highway on Tuesday, police said.

Rescue workers picked their way through bits of twisted metal, shattered windscreens and lorry freight scattered over the highway while stretchers and ambulances lined up to take away the injured.

"I saw in my rear view mirror how the lorries slammed in from behind. I got out of my car and all I could hear was the screaming from the man whose wife had been killed," said Raphael Auer from Salzburg. "It was pure madness, like a battlefield."

The dead woman was a Spanish citizen living in Switzerland, said police, adding that 30 people were injured in the pileup.

"We had heavy snow and one accident happened ... then a series of other accidents in its wake," said Guenther Weissl from the highway police, who led the rescue operation.

More than 45 police officers and 150 Red Cross rescue workers attended the crash scene on the A-1 motorway linking Vienna and Salzburg in the province of Upper Austria.

The Austrian motoring association OeAMTC said continuing heavy snow falls forced it to abort flights by some of its rescue helicopters. (Reporting by Christine Soukenka; Writing by Karin Strohecker; Editing by Alastair Sharp)

AlertNet news is provided by