“I hope the numbers stop here,” said Veneto Governor Luca Zaia, whose region in northeastern Italy borders the Dolomites mountain range, including the Marmolada glacier. He spoke at the Canazei resort, where a mortuary had been set up at the ice rink. Another regional leader, Maurizio Fugatti, said as of Monday afternoon 14 people remained missing: 10 Italians, three from the Czech Republic and one from Austria. “We’ve been contacted by families because these people haven’t returned home,” said Fugatti from the Trentino-Alto Adige Alpine region.
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Story continues below ad In the mountain’s parking lot, four cars remained whose occupants had not been located _ two cars had plates from the Czech Republic, one from Germany and the fourth from Hungary. Fugatti raised the possibility that there are people whose families are unaware of their status, as they may be on vacation and check in with relatives only at the end of the vacation. At least three of the dead were Italian, authorities said. Italian news reports said one of the dead was from the Czech Republic, which is more commonly known in English as the Czech Republic. On Sunday, officials said nine people were injured, but officials at a press conference Monday in the resort of Canazei said there were eight people, including two hospitalized in what they described as a “critical,” serious condition. Zaia said those hospitalized included two Germans and a 40-year-old patient who has not yet been identified. The avalanche roared when dozens of hikers were on hikes, including some of them roped together. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, flanking the officials after meeting family members of some of the dead, expressed “the most sincere, affectionate, heartfelt closeness” to the families. This undated picture released Sunday, July 3, 2022, by the Italian National Alpine and Cave Rescue Corps shows the type of rescue helicopters used on the glacier in the Italian Alps near Trento, where a large chunk of ice has broken off. Corpo Nazionale Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico via AP Looking grim, he demanded that steps be taken to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. “It’s a drama that certainly has some unpredictability,” Draghi said, echoing several experts who said an avalanche caused by the breakup of a glacier could not be predicted. Story continues below ad But what happened “definitely depends on the environmental deterioration and the climate situation,” the prime minister said. The Marmolada glacier has been shrinking for decades and scientists at the government research center CNR have said it will be gone within 25-30 years. Trending Stories
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“Today, Italy is coming together” around the affected families, Draghi said. “The government needs to reflect on what happened and take action so that what happened has very little, if any, chance of happening again.” The detached part of the glacier was massive, estimated at 200 meters wide, 80 meters high and 60 meters deep. Zaia likened the avalanche to “an apartment building (sized) block of ice with debris and cyclopean masses of rock.” “I can’t say anything other than the facts, and the facts tell us that high temperatures are not conducive to these situations,” Zaya told reporters.
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Italy is in the grip of a weeks-long heat wave and Alpine rescuers said the temperature at the top of the glacier last week exceeded 10C (50F) when it should normally be near freezing at this time of year. Drones were used to help search for any of the missing as well as verify safety, but even they had to cease operations when storms hit the area late in the morning. Story continues below ad What caused a peak of the glacier to break off and thunder down the slope at a speed estimated by experts at about 300 km/h (nearly 200 mph) was not immediately known. But high temperatures were widely cited as a possible factor. This undated image released Monday, July 4, 2022, by the Glaciological Commission of the Tridentine Alpinists Society shows the Fedaia Glacier in the Italian Alps near Trento before a large chunk broke off on Sunday, killing at least seven hikers and injuring eight others. Cristian Ferrari/Commissione Glaciologica Società Alpinisti Tridentini via AP Jacopo Gabrieli, a polar science researcher at Italy’s state-run research center CNR, noted that the long heat wave, spanning May and June, was the hottest in northern Italy at that time for almost 20 years. “It is absolutely an anomaly,” Gabrieli said in an interview on Italian state television on Monday. Like other experts, he said it would be impossible to predict when or if a serac — a peak from the outcrop of a glacier — might break off, as it did on Sunday. Managers of rustic lodges along the mountainside said temperatures at 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) recently reached 24 C (75 F) – unheard of in a place where hikers go in the summer to cool off. Story continues below ad 3:31 Tips for visiting Italy, one of the most popular travel destinations for North Americans Tips for visiting Italy, one of the most popular travel destinations for North Americans – March 29, 2022 The glacier, in the Marmolada range, is the largest in the Dolomites mountains in northeastern Italy. People ski in this winter. But the glacier has been melting rapidly in recent decades, with much of its volume gone. The Mediterranean basin, which includes southern European countries such as Italy, has been labeled by UN experts as a “climate change hotspot”, likely to suffer heat waves and water shortages, among other consequences. Pope Francis, who has made caring for the planet a priority of his papacy, tweeted an invitation to pray for the avalanche victims and their families. “The tragedies we are experiencing with climate change must push us to urgently seek new ways that respect people and nature,” Francis wrote. 0:42 Helicopter crash in Italy kills 7 Helicopter crashes in Italy kills 7 – June 11, 2022 © 2022 The Canadian Press
