At least six people have been killed and eight injured after a large chunk of an Alpine glacier broke off and roared down a mountainside in Italy.
About 10 people were reported missing after cascading ice, snow and rocks swept through hikers on a popular trail in the Dolomites on Sunday afternoon.
Rescuers were searching for survivors, but the Trento provincial government warned it expected “heavy casualties” after the large “ice avalanche” which came amid record temperatures.
The glacier on Mount Marmolada is the largest in the Dolomites in northeastern Italy and is used as a ski slope in winter, but its ice has been melting rapidly in recent years.
Officials Sunday night were still working to determine how many hikers were in the area when the ice avalanche hit, said Walter Millan, a spokesman for the National Alpine Rescue Corps, who provided the number of dead and injured.
Rescuers were checking license plates in the parking lot as part of checks to determine how many people might be missing, a process that could take hours, he told The Associated Press.
“We saw dead [people] and huge chunks of ice, rocks,” exhausted rescuer Luigi Felicetti told Italian state television.
The glacier that sent ice cascading down a mountainside in Italy
(Mountain Rescue Service Trento)
The nationalities or ages of the dead were not immediately available, Mr Milan said. Of the eight hospitalized survivors, two are in serious condition, authorities said.
The injured were airlifted to several hospitals in the Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto regions, according to rescue services.
The fast-moving avalanche “came down with a roar and could be heard for a long distance,” local online media site ildolomiti.it said.
Earlier, the National Alpine and Cave Rescue Corps tweeted that at least five helicopters and rescue dogs were involved in the search of the Mount Marmolada area.
The search for more victims or missing has been temporarily suspended while rescuers assess the risk of more breaking off the glacier, Walter Kainelli, after conducting a rescue mission with a search dog, told state television.
Rescuers said the ice blocks continued to collapse. In the early evening it started to rain lightly.
The SUEM dispatch office, which is based in the nearby Veneto region, said 18 people who were above the area where the ice hit would be evacuated by the Alpine Rescue Corps.
But Mr Millan said some of the slope may be able to get down on their own, including by using the cable car at the top.
SUEM said the avalanche consisted of “snow, ice and rock dumping”. The detached section is known as a serac or ice peak.
Marmolada, rising to about 3,300 meters (about 11,00 feet), is the highest peak in the eastern Dolomites, offering spectacular views of other alpine peaks.
The Alpine Rescue Service said in a tweet that the segment broke off near Punta Roca, or Rock Point, “on the route normally used to reach the summit”.
(AFP via Getty Images)
It is not yet clear what caused the chunk of ice to break off and hurtle down the slope of the summit. But authorities said the intense heat wave sweeping Italy since late June was likely a factor.
“The temperatures during these days have clearly influenced” the partial collapse of the glacier, Maurizio Fugatti, president of the Trento province, told Sky TG24 news.
Experts from Italy’s state research center CNR, which has an institute for polar sciences, predicted the glacier would be gone within three decades as it melts from rising temperatures. The Mediterranean basin, shared by southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, has been identified by UN experts as a “climate change hotspot” likely to suffer heat waves and water shortages, among other consequences.
But Mr Millan stressed that the high temperature, which has soared above 10C at the summit of Marmolada in recent days, was only one possible factor in Sunday’s tragedy.
“There are so many factors that can be involved,” he added. Avalanches are generally unpredictable, he said, and the effect of heat on the glacier “is even more unpredictable.”
In separate comments on Italian state television, Mr Milan called the latest temperatures “extreme heat” for the peak. “It’s obviously something abnormal.
Additional accountability from agencies
Add Comment