Italian alps glacier collapse: search resumes for
missing hikers after six killed
The ice glacier collapse on Marmolada mountain.
The ice glacier collapse on Marmolada mountain in the
Italian alps killed at least six hikers.
Fifteen climbers could still be missing, say
authorities, after fall of ice, snow and rock on popular trail on Marmolada
mountain in Dolomites
Staff and
agencies
Mon 4 Jul
2022 06.42 BST
The search
for survivors of a glacier collapse in which at least six people have died has
resumed in Italy’s Dolomites region.
Authorities
believe as many as 15 people may still be missing after a large chunk of alpine
glacier broke loose on Sunday afternoon and sent ice, snow and rock slamming
into hikers on a popular trail on the Marmolada peak. Nine people were injured
in the slide.
Emergency
services spokeswoman Michela Canova told AFP the total number of climbers
affected was unknown because the glacier fall hit an access path at a time when
there were several roped parties there, some of whom were swept away.
She did not
specify the nationalities of the victims, but Italian media reported that
foreign nationals were among them.
In late
evening, the National Alpine and Cave Rescue Corps tweeted a phone number to
call for family or friends in case of “failure to return from possible
excursions” to the glacier.
Rescuers
were checking number plates in the car park as part of checks to determine how
many people might be unaccounted for, a process that could take hours, said
Walter Milan, a spokesman for the Corps.
Sunday’s
search of the peak involved rescue dogs and at least five helicopters, but was
paused on Sunday night amid fears that more of the glacier could come away.
The rescue
corps had said the hikers were “hit by the detachment of the serac”, using a
term for a pinnacle of a glacier. Two of the injured were in “grave” condition,
it said.
Rescuer
Luigi Felicetti told Italian state TV: “We saw dead [people] and enormous
chunks of ice, rock.”
The SUEM
(Servizio Urgenza Emergenza Medica) dispatch service, based in the nearby
Veneto region, said 18 people who were above the area where the ice struck
would be evacuated by the rescue corps.
The
dispatch service said the avalanche consisted of a “pouring down of snow, ice
and rock”.
Some of
those trekking in the area where the avalanche barrelled through were tied
together by rope, according to local emergency services.
Marmolada,
which is about 3,300 metres (11,000ft) high, is the tallest peak in the eastern
Dolomites.
“A breaking
away of rock provoked the opening of a crevasse on the glacier, leaving about
15 people involved,” the emergency dispatchers tweeted.
The alpine
rescue service said in a tweet that the segment broke off near Punta Rocca
(Rock Point), “along the itinerary normally used to reach the peak”.
It was not
immediately clear what caused the section of ice to break away but the intense
heatwave that has gripped Italy since late June could be a factor, said Milan.
“The heat
is unusual,” Milan said, noting that temperatures in recent days on the peak
had topped 10C (50F). “That’s extreme heat” for the peak, he said. “Clearly
it’s something abnormal.”
Experts at
Italy’s state-run CNR research centre said the glacier would not exist any more
in the next 25-30 years and much of its volume was already gone.
The injured
were flown to several hospitals in the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige and
Veneto, according to rescue services.
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