CANAZEI, Italy (AP) – Rescuers found body parts and equipment as they searched for missing hikers on Tuesday after a powerful avalanche that killed at least seven people and is largely blamed for the rising temperature. melting glaciers.
Officials initially feared 13 hikers were still missing, but the province of Trento on Tuesday reduced the number of missing people to five, after eight more consulted with authorities.
The rain made search difficult on Monday, but sunny weather on Tuesday allowed helicopters to bring more rescue equipment to the site of the Marmolada Glacier, east of Bolzano, in the Dolomites, although hopes of find someone alive have darkened.
A large chunk of the glacier split on Sunday, causing an avalanche that sent torrents of ice, rocks and debris down the mountain slope toward unsuspecting hikers. At least seven people were killed, authorities said.
“We need to be clear, finding someone alive with this type of event is a very remote, very remote possibility, because the mechanical action of this type of avalanche has a very big impact on people,” Alex Barattin said. , from the Alpine Rescue Service. .
Nicola Casagli, a geologist and avalanche expert at the University of Florence, said the impact of the glacier collapse on hikers was greater than a simple avalanche of snow and would have taken them completely by surprise.
“These kinds of events, which are avalanches of ice and debris, are impulsive, fast, unpredictable phenomena that reach very high speeds and involve large masses,” he said. “And there’s no chance of getting to a safe place or perceiving the problem in advance, because when you perceive it, you’ve already been hit.”
Photos from the Associated Press, taken during a helicopter survey of the site, showed a hole open in the glacier as if cut into the blue-gray ice by a giant ice cream palette.
The terrain was still so unstable that rescue crews stood to one side and used drones to try to find survivors or signs of life while helicopters searched overhead, some using equipment to detect cell pings. Two lifeguards remained at the scene overnight and more lifeguards joined on Tuesday morning.
Maurizio Dellantonio, national president of the Alpine Rescue Service, said teams had found body parts, hiking equipment and clothing on the surface of the ruins, evidence of the avalanche’s powerful impact on hikers.
“We have recovered many fragments during the last two days. They are very painful for whoever picks them up. and then for those who have to analyze them, ”he said. “Personally I can only think that what we have found on the surface will be the same as what we will find underneath, when the ice melts or digs, if there is a possibility.”
Officials closed all access roads and chairlifts to the glacier for hikers, fearing continued instability and the possibility that more pieces of ice could separate.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who visited the Canazei rescue base on Monday, acknowledged that the avalanches are unpredictable, but that the tragedy “certainly depends on the deteriorating climate situation.”
Italy is in the middle of a heat wave in early summer, along with the worst drought in northern Italy in 70 years. Experts say there was unusually light snowfall in the winter, which exposed the glaciers of the Italian Alps more to the heat and thaw of summer.
“We are therefore in the worst conditions for such a detachment, when there is so much heat and so much running water at the base,” said Renato Colucci of the State Council’s Institute of Polar Sciences. National Research, or CNR. “We are not yet able to understand whether it was a deep or superficial landslide, but its size seems 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 are maintained, as it lost 30% of its volume and 22% of its surface between 2004-2015 .
Casagli said what happened in the Marmolada was unusual, but said these destructive avalanches will be more frequent as global temperatures rise.
“The fact that it has happened in a scorching summer with abnormal temperatures should be a wake-up call to understand that these phenomena, while rare, are possible,” he told reporters. “If we do not take decisive action to counteract the effects of climate change, they will become more frequent.”
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Winfield reported from Rome.