About 10 people were reported missing after cascading ice, snow and rock fell on hikers on a popular trail in the Dolomites on Sunday afternoon. Rescuers were searching for survivors, but the Trento provincial government warned it expected a “heavy price” after the large “ice avalanche”, which came amid record temperatures. The glacier, in the Marmolada mountain range, is the largest in the Dolomites in northeastern Italy and is used as a ski slope in winter, but its ice has been melting rapidly in recent years. Officials Sunday night 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 parking lot as part of checks to determine how many people might be missing, a process that could take hours, he told The Associated Press. “We saw dead people [people] and huge pieces of ice, rock,” exhausted rescuer Luigi Felicetti told Italian state television. The glacier that sent ice down a mountainside in Italy (Trento Mountain Rescue Service) The nationalities or ages of the dead were not immediately available, Mr. Milan said. Of the eight survivors who were hospitalized, two were in serious condition, authorities said. The injured were taken to several hospitals in the Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto regions, according to rescue services. The fast-moving avalanche “came down with a roar that could be heard a long way off,” local online media site ildolomiti.it reported. Earlier, the National Alpine and Cave Rescue Corps tweeted that at least five helicopters and rescue dogs were involved in the search of the affected area of Marmolada Peak. Temporarily, the search for other victims or missing people has been halted while rescuers assess the risk of more of the glacier breaking off, Walter Cainelli told state television after carrying out a rescue mission with a search dog. Rescuers said chunks of ice kept falling. Early in the evening a light rain began to fall. The SUEM dispatch service, which is based in the nearby Veneto region, said 18 people who were above the area where the ice hit would be evacuated by the Alpine rescue corps. But Mr Millan said some on the slope might be able to get down on their own, including using the summit cable car. 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 about 3,300 meters (about 11,000 feet), is the highest peak in the eastern Dolomites, offering spectacular views of other Alpine peaks. The Alpine Rescue Service said in a tweet that the section was interrupted near Punta Rocca, or Rock Point, “along the route normally used to reach the summit”. (AFP via Getty Images) It was not immediately clear what caused the section of ice to detach and plummet down the summit slope. But authorities said the intense heatwave that has hit Italy since late June is likely to be a factor. “The temperatures of these days clearly had an influence” on the partial collapse of the glacier, Maurizio Fugati, president of the Trento province, told Sky TG24. Experts at Italy’s state-run research center CNR, which has a polar science institute, have predicted the glacier will be gone within three decades as it melts from rising temperatures. 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. However, Mr Millan stressed that the high heat, which has soared above 10C at the summit of Marmolada in recent days, was only one possible factor in Sunday’s tragedy. “There are so many factors that could be involved,” he added. 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 out of the ordinary.” Additional reports from agencies
