CANACEI, Italy (AP) — Rescuers found body parts and equipment as they searched Tuesday for hikers missing after a powerful avalanche killed at least seven people and was blamed in large part on rising temperatures that are melting glaciers.
Authorities initially feared 13 tourists were still missing, but the province of Trento on Tuesday reduced the number of people missing to five after eight others registered with authorities.
Rain hampered the search on Monday, but sunny weather on Tuesday allowed helicopters to bring more rescue teams to the site on the Marmolada glacier, east of Bolzano in the Dolomites mountains, although hopes of finding anyone alive were dimmed.
A huge chunk of the glacier broke off on Sunday, triggering an avalanche that sent torrents of ice, rock and debris hurtling down the mountainside to unsuspecting hikers below. At least seven people were killed, officials said.
“We have to be clear, finding someone alive in this type of event is a very remote possibility, very remote, because the mechanical action of this type of avalanche has a very high impact on people,” said Alex Baratin of the Alpine Rescue Service.
Nicola Casali, a geologist and avalanche expert at the University of Florence, said the impact of the glacier’s collapse on the tourists was greater than a simple snow avalanche and would have taken them completely by surprise.
“These types of events, which are ice and debris avalanches, are impulsive, fast, unpredictable phenomena, reaching very high speeds and involving large masses,” he said. “And there’s no chance to get to a safe place or perceive the problem beforehand, because by the time you feel it, you’ve already been hit.”
Associated Press photos taken during a helicopter survey of the site show a gaping hole in the glacier, as if carved out of the blue-gray ice by a giant ice cream scoop.
The terrain was still so unstable that rescue teams stood by and used drones to try to find survivors or signs of life while helicopters searched overhead, some using equipment to detect cellular pings. Two rescuers remained on the scene overnight and were joined by more rescuers on Tuesday morning.
Maurizio Delantonio, national president of the Alpine Rescue Service, said crews found body parts, hiking equipment and clothing on the surface of the debris, evidence of the avalanche’s powerful impact on hikers.
“We have recovered so many fragments in the last two days. They are very painful to those who take them. and then for those who have to analyze them,” he said. “Personally, I can only think that what we found on the surface will be the same as what we will find below when the ice melts or by mining if there is a chance.”
Officials have closed all access routes and chairlifts to the glacier to tourists, fearing continued instability and the possibility of more chunks of ice breaking off.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who visited the Cannacei rescue base on Monday, admitted that avalanches were unpredictable but that the tragedy “certainly depends on the deterioration of the climate situation”.
Italy is in the midst of an early summer heatwave, coupled with the worst drought in northern Italy in 70 years. Experts say there has been unusually little snowfall over the winter, exposing the Italian Alps’ glaciers more to summer heat and melting.
“So we’re in the worst conditions for a detachment of this kind, when there’s so much heat and so much water flowing at the base,” said Renato Colucci of the state-run National Research Council’s Institute of Polar Sciences, or CNR. “We still can’t tell if it was a deep or surface detachment, but the size of it appears to be very large, judging by the preliminary images and information received.”
The CNR has estimated that the Marmolada Glacier could disappear completely in the next 25-30 years if current climate trends continue, given that it lost 30% of its volume and 22% of its area from 2004-2015.
Casali said what happened at Marmolada was unusual, but said such destructive avalanches will become more common as global temperatures rise.
“The fact that this happened in a hot summer with unusual temperatures should be a wake-up call to understand that these phenomena, although rare, are possible,” he told reporters. “If we don’t take decisive action to counter the effects of climate change, they will become more frequent.”
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Winfield reported from Rome.
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