Glacier collapses in Italian Alps, six dead: rescuers

An avalanche set off by the collapse of the most significant glacier in the Italian Alps killed at least 6 persons and injured eight many others Sunday, an unexpected emergency services spokeswoman explained.

The glacier collapsed on the mountain of Marmolada, the maximum in the Italian Dolomites, in the vicinity of the hamlet of Punta Rocca, on the route commonly taken to achieve its summit.

The catastrophe struck one particular working day after a document-significant temperature of 10 levels Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded at the glacier’s summit.

“An avalanche of snow, ice and rock hit an access path at a time when there ended up numerous roped parties, some of whom ended up swept absent,” emergency expert services spokeswoman Michela Canova advised AFP.

6 people experienced been confirmed lifeless and eight ended up wounded, she included.

Two of the injured have been taken to clinic in Belluno, a further in a far more really serious affliction was taken to Treviso and five to Trento.

“The complete quantity of climbers included is not still known,” said Canova.

She did not specify the nationalities of the victims.

Helicopters had been scrambled to get element in the rescue and to monitor the predicament from the air.

Rescuers in the nearby Veneto region of northeast Italy mentioned they had deployed all their Alpine groups, like sniffer canines.

Additional collapses feared

Photos filmed from a refuge close to the incident clearly show snow and rock hurtling down the mountain’s slopes and producing a thunderous sounds.

Other footage shot by holidaymakers on their cellular telephones showed the greyish avalanche sweep absent all the things in its path.

The mountain rescue staff unveiled images showing rescuers and helicopters at the scene to just take victims from the valley to the village of Canazei.

Their task was designed harder since the bodies were being trapped beneath a layer of ice and rock.

A workforce of psychologists has been built readily available to assist relations of the victims.

Experts quoted by the Corriere della Sera daily stated they feared even further collapses of ice.

Glacier expert Renato Colucci informed the Italian company AGI that the phenomenon was “certain to repeat by itself”, due to the fact “for months the temperatures at altitude in the Alps have been nicely outside of usual values”.

The latest heat temperatures had generated a significant amount of h2o from the melting glacier that accrued at the bottom of the block of ice and prompted it to collapse, he extra.

The Marmolada glacier is the major in the Dolomites mountain array, which is component of the Italian Alps and located on the northern experience of Marmolada.

The glacier, nicknamed “the queen of the Dolomites”, feeds the Avisio river and overlooks Lake Fedaia in the autonomous Italian province of Trento.

In accordance to a March report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Weather Improve (IPCC), melting ice and snow is one of 10 important threats induced by worldwide warming, disrupting ecosystems and infrastructure.

The IPCC has said glaciers in Scandinavia, central Europe and the Caucasus could get rid of amongst 60 and 80 % of their mass by the end of the century.

The common way of everyday living of persons this kind of as the Sami in Finland’s Lapland, who raise reindeer, has already been afflicted.

Thawing permafrost is also hampering economic action in Canada and Russia.

© 2022 AFP