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ITV news correspondent Ian Woods reports on emergency rescue efforts deployed in response to the deaths of several people following the rupture of a large chunk of an alpine glacier in Italy.
The storms have made it difficult to search for more than a dozen hikers who remain missing, as it was confirmed that seven people died in Italy after a large chunk of an alpine glacier broke down.
Nine people were injured in the avalanche from the Marmolada glacier on Sunday afternoon when dozens of hikers were hiking, some of them stranded.
State television RAI reported from the scene that 15 people were missing.
A storm forced the helicopter flying by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi to the affected area.
According to media reports, among the missing subjects are some Italians, three Romanians, one of French nationality, another of Austria and four of Czech.
The glacier of the mountain range of the Marmolada of the Italian Alps near Trento from which a great piece fell. Credit: Autonomous Province of Trento via AP
An ice rink in the tourist resort of the Canazei Dolomites served as an improvised morgue to identify those who had died as a result of the tragedy. At least four bodies brought to the ice rink had been identified Monday afternoon. RAI said three of those identified were Italians, including an experienced alpine guide who led a group of hikers.
Another was a hiker whose relatives said he had just sent himself a selfie from the slope shortly before the avalanche fell.
The glacier, in the Sierra de la Marmolada, is the largest of the Dolomites in northeastern Italy and is skied there in winter. But the glacier has been melting rapidly in recent years. Experts at the CNR research center in Italy, which has a polar science institute, say the glacier will no longer exist in the next 25-30 years and that most of its volume has already disappeared.
The Mediterranean basin, shared by southern Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa, has been identified by UN experts as a “hot spot of climate change”, susceptible to heat waves and shortages of climate change. water, among other consequences.
The rapid avalanche “came down with a roar that could be heard at a great distance,” local online media site ildolomiti.it said.
Sixteen cars were left unclaimed in the parking lot in the area and authorities tried to locate the occupants through license plates.
It was unclear how many of the cars could have belonged to the already identified victims or the injured, all of whom were airlifted to hospitals on Sunday.
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SUEM said the avalanche consisted of a “spill of snow, ice and rock.” The separate section is known as the serac, or ice pinnacle. La Marmolada, at an altitude of about 3,300 meters (about 11,000 feet), is the highest peak in the Eastern Dolomites and offers spectacular views of other alpine peaks. The alpine rescue service said in a tweet that the segment broke near Punta Rocca (rock point), “along the route commonly used to reach the summit.” It was not immediately clear what caused the ice section to break and precipitate down the slope of the peak. But the intense heat wave that has taken Italy since the end of June could be a factor. “Temperatures these days clearly influenced” the partial collapse of the glacier, Maurizio Fugatti, president of Trento province, bordering Marmolada, told Sky TG24 News. But Milan has stressed that the high heat, which rose unusually above 10 ºC (50 ºF) at the peak of the Marmolada in recent days, was only one possible factor in Sunday’s tragedy. “There are a lot of factors that could be involved,” Milan said. Avalanches are generally unpredictable, he said, and the influence of heat on a glacier “is even more impossible to predict.” In separate comments on Italian state television, Milan described recent temperatures as “extreme heat” for the peak. “It’s clearly an abnormal thing.” The injured were taken to various hospitals in the Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto regions, according to rescue services.