Footage from Italy’s Alpine rescue service shows the avalanche falling down the mountainside At least six people died in Italy when a large chunk of an Alpine glacier broke off, slid down a mountainside and fell on a group of more than a dozen hikers on a popular route. There may be around 10 people missing, Civil Protection official Gianpaolo Bottasin said, according to the online edition of Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. But Mr Bottacin later told state television that it was not yet possible to give a firm figure. The glacier, in the Marmolada range, is the largest in the Dolomites mountains in northeastern Italy, and people ski there in the winter. But the glacier has been melting rapidly in recent years. Experts at Italy’s state-run research center CNR, 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 labeled a “climate change hot spot” by UN experts, likely to suffer heat waves and water shortages, among other consequences. As of Sunday afternoon, officials were still working to determine how many hikers were in the area when the ice avalanche hit, said Walter Milan, a spokesman for the national Alpine rescue corps who gave a toll on the dead and injured. Rescuers were checking license plates in the car park as part of checks to determine how many people might be missing, a process that could take hours, Mr Milan said. “We saw dead (people) and huge pieces of ice, rock,” exhausted rescuer Luigi Felicetti told Italian state television. The nationalities or ages of the dead were not immediately available, Mr. Milan said. Of the eight survivors who were hospitalized, two were in critical condition, authorities said. The fast-moving avalanche “came down with a roar that could be heard from a great distance,” local online media website ildolomiti.it reported. Earlier, the National Alpine and Cave Rescue Corps tweeted that the search in the involved area of Marmolada Peak involved at least five helicopters and rescue dogs. For the time being, the search for other victims or missing people has been halted while rescuers assess the risk of more glacier breaks, said Walter Cainelli, after conducting a rescue mission with a search dog. State TV. Rescuers said chunks of ice kept falling. In the early afternoon, a light rain began to fall. The mission agency SUEM, which is based in the nearby Veneto region, said 18 people were above the area where the ice The Alpine Rescue Corps will evacuate the hit, but Milan said some on the slope may be able to get down alone them, among others by using the top cable car. Want a quick and special update on the biggest news? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out what you need to know SUEM said the avalanche consisted of “snow, ice and rock spillage”. The detached portion is known as a serac, or ice peak. Marmolada, rising to around 3,300 meters (about 11,000 feet), is the highest peak in the eastern Dolomites, offering stunning views of other Alpine peaks. The Alpine Rescue Service said in a tweet that the section was interrupted near Punta Rocca (Rock Point), “along the route normally used to reach the summit”. It was not immediately clear what caused the chunk of ice to break off and hurtle down the mountainside. However, the intense heat wave that has hit Italy since late June could be a factor. “The temperatures of these days clearly influenced” the partial collapse of the glacier, Maurizio Fugatti, president of the province of Trento, which borders Marmolada, told Sky TG24. But Mr Millan stressed that the high heat, which has soared unusually above 10C (50F) on top of Marmolada in recent days, was only one possible factor in Sunday’s tragedy. “There are so many factors that could be involved,” Mr Millan said. Avalanches are generally unpredictable, he said, and the effect of heat on a glacier “is even more impossible to predict.” In separate comments on Italian state television, Mr Milan called recent temperatures “extremely hot” for the peak. “It’s clearly something abnormal.” The injured were airlifted to several hospitals in the Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto regions, according to rescue services.
