UPDATED
Rescuers gather body parts after Italy glacier collapseBy AFP
Published July 5, 2022
A rescue helicopter flies over the partially collapsed glacier on Marmolada, the highest mountain in the Dolomites -
Copyright AFP Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS
Francesco Gilioli with Ella Ide in Rome
Emergency services at the scene of a deadly avalanche in the Italian Dolomites recovered what body parts they could on Tuesday, with the dangers of venturing under the partially collapsed glacier slowing the search.
Rescue teams sent helicopters and drones up for a second day after Sunday’s disaster, which saw at least seven hikers killed when a section of the country’s largest Alpine glacier gave way, sending ice and rock hurtling down the mountain.
Italy has blamed the collapse on climate change and fears more of the glacier could come crashing down have prevented access to much of the area where hikers, some roped together, are believed to be buried.
Authorities have declared 14 missing but stressed the exact number of climbers at the scene when the avalanche hit was unknown.
“Operations on the ground will only be carried out to recover any remains discovered by the drones, to ensure rescuers’ safety,” the Trentino Alpine Rescue Service said Tuesday.
Experts were surveying the area to determine how best to enable teams with sniffer dogs to get out onto the site safely on Wednesday or Thursday, the Service’s national chief Maurizio Dellantonio told AGI news agency.
Relatives of people reported missing gathered at the town of Canazei, where recovered remains were placed in a make-shift morgue at a gymnasium.
“The important finds, not just bones, are first photographed, then recovered and put onto a helicopter” and flown to Canazei to be “catalogued and placed in cold storage”, Dellantonio said.
Such finds were “bones that have not been flayed, a piece of hand with a ring, tattoos, anything that can enable a person to be identified”, including shoes, backpacks and ice-picks.
– Last selfie –
The disaster struck one day after a record-high temperature of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded at the summit of Marmolada, the highest mountain in the Italian Dolomites.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Monday the collapse was certainly “linked to the deterioration of the environment and the climate situation”.
One of the bodies recovered belonged to a Czech who was travelling with a friend now registered as missing, the Czech foreign ministry told AFP.
Also missing, according to Italian media reports, was Filippo Bari, 27, who had snapped a grinning selfie of himself on the mountain earlier Sunday and sent it to family and friends saying “look where I am!”
Bari, who has a four-year old son, has not responded to repeated attempts to contact him, nor have the five friends he was believed to be hiking with, the Corriere della Sera said.
The Trento public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation to determine the causes of the tragedy.
The glacier, nicknamed “queen of the Dolomites”, feeds the Avisio river and overlooks Lake Fedaia in the autonomous Italian province of Trento.
According to a March report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), melting ice and snow is one of 10 major threats caused by global warming, disrupting ecosystems and infrastructure.
Francesco Gilioli with Ella Ide in Rome
Emergency services at the scene of a deadly avalanche in the Italian Dolomites recovered what body parts they could on Tuesday, with the dangers of venturing under the partially collapsed glacier slowing the search.
Rescue teams sent helicopters and drones up for a second day after Sunday’s disaster, which saw at least seven hikers killed when a section of the country’s largest Alpine glacier gave way, sending ice and rock hurtling down the mountain.
Italy has blamed the collapse on climate change and fears more of the glacier could come crashing down have prevented access to much of the area where hikers, some roped together, are believed to be buried.
Authorities have declared 14 missing but stressed the exact number of climbers at the scene when the avalanche hit was unknown.
“Operations on the ground will only be carried out to recover any remains discovered by the drones, to ensure rescuers’ safety,” the Trentino Alpine Rescue Service said Tuesday.
Experts were surveying the area to determine how best to enable teams with sniffer dogs to get out onto the site safely on Wednesday or Thursday, the Service’s national chief Maurizio Dellantonio told AGI news agency.
Relatives of people reported missing gathered at the town of Canazei, where recovered remains were placed in a make-shift morgue at a gymnasium.
“The important finds, not just bones, are first photographed, then recovered and put onto a helicopter” and flown to Canazei to be “catalogued and placed in cold storage”, Dellantonio said.
Such finds were “bones that have not been flayed, a piece of hand with a ring, tattoos, anything that can enable a person to be identified”, including shoes, backpacks and ice-picks.
– Last selfie –
The disaster struck one day after a record-high temperature of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded at the summit of Marmolada, the highest mountain in the Italian Dolomites.
Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Monday the collapse was certainly “linked to the deterioration of the environment and the climate situation”.
One of the bodies recovered belonged to a Czech who was travelling with a friend now registered as missing, the Czech foreign ministry told AFP.
Also missing, according to Italian media reports, was Filippo Bari, 27, who had snapped a grinning selfie of himself on the mountain earlier Sunday and sent it to family and friends saying “look where I am!”
Bari, who has a four-year old son, has not responded to repeated attempts to contact him, nor have the five friends he was believed to be hiking with, the Corriere della Sera said.
The Trento public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation to determine the causes of the tragedy.
The glacier, nicknamed “queen of the Dolomites”, feeds the Avisio river and overlooks Lake Fedaia in the autonomous Italian province of Trento.
According to a March report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), melting ice and snow is one of 10 major threats caused by global warming, disrupting ecosystems and infrastructure.
Deadly Glacier Collapse in Italy 'Linked Directly to Climate Change'
At least seven people were killed when a glacier slid down a mountainside near a popular climbing route in the Alps on Sunday.
JULIA CONLEY
At least seven people were killed when a glacier slid down a mountainside near a popular climbing route in the Alps on Sunday.
JULIA CONLEY
July 4, 2022
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi joined scientists in pointing to the climate emergency as the cause of a deadly glacier collapse in the Italian Alps on Sunday afternoon, saying policymakers must act to ensure avalanches don't become a more regular occurrence.
The collapse of the glacier in the Marmolada mountain range in the Dolomites "certainly depends on the deterioration of the environment and the climate situation," Draghi said at a press conference following the disaster, which was confirmed Monday to have killed at least seven people.
"Combined with the unusually high temperatures across the region over the summer, glaciers are melting fast."
"Today Italy weeps for these victims," the prime minister added. "But the government must think about what has happened and take steps to ensure that what happened is unlikely to do so again or can even be avoided."
In addition to those killed, at least eight people were injured by the collapse, which happened near a popular climbing route, and 14 were still missing as of this writing.
A huge chunk of the glacier broke off and slid down the mountain during a heat wave that's hit the region earlier in the year than normal. Meteorologists have recorded temperatures of 50° Fahrenheit in the Marmolada mountain group in recent days.
Jonathan Bamber, director of the Bristol Glaciology Center at University of Bristol in the United Kingdom noted that the Dolomites "experienced a drought throughout the winter with very little snowfall."
"Combined with the unusually high temperatures across the region over the summer, glaciers are melting fast," he said, adding that high European mountains are "an [increasingly] dangerous and unpredictable environment to be in."
Poul Christoffersen, a professor of glaciology at the University of Cambridge, called the collapse "a natural disaster linked directly to climate change."
"High elevation glaciers such as the Marmolada are often steep and relying on cold temperatures below zero degrees Celsius to keep them stable," he explained. "But climate change means more and more meltwater, which releases heat that warms up the ice if the water re-freezes, or even worse: lifting up the glacier from the rock below and causing a sudden unstable collapse."
Water at the base of the glacier "and increased pressure in water-filled crevasses are probably the main causes for this catastrophic event," said the Alpine-Adriatic Meteorological Society.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in a recent report that melting ice and snow is one of 10 major threats that humans will need to contend with due to the climate crisis.
The glacier that collapsed Sunday shrank by 30% between 2004 and 2015 according to a 2019 study by the National Research Council in Italy.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi joined scientists in pointing to the climate emergency as the cause of a deadly glacier collapse in the Italian Alps on Sunday afternoon, saying policymakers must act to ensure avalanches don't become a more regular occurrence.
The collapse of the glacier in the Marmolada mountain range in the Dolomites "certainly depends on the deterioration of the environment and the climate situation," Draghi said at a press conference following the disaster, which was confirmed Monday to have killed at least seven people.
"Combined with the unusually high temperatures across the region over the summer, glaciers are melting fast."
"Today Italy weeps for these victims," the prime minister added. "But the government must think about what has happened and take steps to ensure that what happened is unlikely to do so again or can even be avoided."
In addition to those killed, at least eight people were injured by the collapse, which happened near a popular climbing route, and 14 were still missing as of this writing.
A huge chunk of the glacier broke off and slid down the mountain during a heat wave that's hit the region earlier in the year than normal. Meteorologists have recorded temperatures of 50° Fahrenheit in the Marmolada mountain group in recent days.
Jonathan Bamber, director of the Bristol Glaciology Center at University of Bristol in the United Kingdom noted that the Dolomites "experienced a drought throughout the winter with very little snowfall."
"Combined with the unusually high temperatures across the region over the summer, glaciers are melting fast," he said, adding that high European mountains are "an [increasingly] dangerous and unpredictable environment to be in."
Poul Christoffersen, a professor of glaciology at the University of Cambridge, called the collapse "a natural disaster linked directly to climate change."
"High elevation glaciers such as the Marmolada are often steep and relying on cold temperatures below zero degrees Celsius to keep them stable," he explained. "But climate change means more and more meltwater, which releases heat that warms up the ice if the water re-freezes, or even worse: lifting up the glacier from the rock below and causing a sudden unstable collapse."
Water at the base of the glacier "and increased pressure in water-filled crevasses are probably the main causes for this catastrophic event," said the Alpine-Adriatic Meteorological Society.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in a recent report that melting ice and snow is one of 10 major threats that humans will need to contend with due to the climate crisis.
The glacier that collapsed Sunday shrank by 30% between 2004 and 2015 according to a 2019 study by the National Research Council in Italy.
Drone search resumes on Italian glacier after avalanche
By PAOLO SANTALUCIA and NICOLE WINFIELD
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By PAOLO SANTALUCIA and NICOLE WINFIELD
1 of 17
A view of the Punta Rocca glacier near Canazei, in the Italian Alps in northern Italy, Tuesday, July 5, 2022, two day after a huge chunk of the glacier broke loose, sending an avalanche of ice, snow, and rocks onto hikers. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
CANAZEI, Italy (AP) — Rescuers using drones resumed the search Tuesday for an estimated 13 hikers unaccounted-for following an avalanche in northern Italy that killed at least seven people and is being blamed in large part on rising temperatures that are melting glaciers.
After rain hampered the search Monday, sunny weather on Tuesday allowed helicopters to bring more rescue teams up to the site on the Marmolada glacier, east of Bolzano in the Dolomites mountain range.
A huge chunk of the glacier cleaved off Sunday, sparking an avalanche that sent torrents of ice, rock and debris down the mountainside onto unsuspecting hikers below. At least seven people were killed and an estimated 13 remain unaccounted-for, officials said.
The terrain is still so unstable that rescue crews were staying off to the side and using drones to try to find any survivors while helicopters searched overhead, some using equipment to detect cellular pings. Two rescuers remained on site overnight, and were joined by more rescuers Tuesday morning.
“We’re continuing the work of drones to find survivors, working the areas that we couldn’t monitor yesterday,” Matteo Gasperini, of the Alpine Rescue service, told Sky TG24. “We’ll try to complete the work of monitoring the entire site.”
Premier Mario Draghi, who visited the rescue base in Canazei on Monday, acknowledged avalanches are unpredictable but that the tragedy “certainly depends on the deterioration of the climate situation.”
Italy is in the midst of an early summer heatwave, coupled with the worst drought in northern Italy in 70 years. Experts say there was unusually little snowfall during the winter, exposing the glaciers of the Italian Alps more to the summer heat and melt.
“We are thus in the worst conditions for a detachment of this kind, when there’s so much heat and so much water running at the base,” said Renato Colucci from the Institute of Polar Sciences of the state-run Council for National Research, or CNR. “We aren’t yet able to understand if it was a deep or superficial detachment, but the size of it seems very big, judging from the preliminary images and information received.”
The CNR has estimated that the Marmolada glacier could disappear entirely in the next 25-30 years if current climatic trends continue, given that it lost 30% of its volume and 22% of its area from 2004-2015.
CANAZEI, Italy (AP) — Rescuers using drones resumed the search Tuesday for an estimated 13 hikers unaccounted-for following an avalanche in northern Italy that killed at least seven people and is being blamed in large part on rising temperatures that are melting glaciers.
After rain hampered the search Monday, sunny weather on Tuesday allowed helicopters to bring more rescue teams up to the site on the Marmolada glacier, east of Bolzano in the Dolomites mountain range.
A huge chunk of the glacier cleaved off Sunday, sparking an avalanche that sent torrents of ice, rock and debris down the mountainside onto unsuspecting hikers below. At least seven people were killed and an estimated 13 remain unaccounted-for, officials said.
The terrain is still so unstable that rescue crews were staying off to the side and using drones to try to find any survivors while helicopters searched overhead, some using equipment to detect cellular pings. Two rescuers remained on site overnight, and were joined by more rescuers Tuesday morning.
“We’re continuing the work of drones to find survivors, working the areas that we couldn’t monitor yesterday,” Matteo Gasperini, of the Alpine Rescue service, told Sky TG24. “We’ll try to complete the work of monitoring the entire site.”
Premier Mario Draghi, who visited the rescue base in Canazei on Monday, acknowledged avalanches are unpredictable but that the tragedy “certainly depends on the deterioration of the climate situation.”
Italy is in the midst of an early summer heatwave, coupled with the worst drought in northern Italy in 70 years. Experts say there was unusually little snowfall during the winter, exposing the glaciers of the Italian Alps more to the summer heat and melt.
“We are thus in the worst conditions for a detachment of this kind, when there’s so much heat and so much water running at the base,” said Renato Colucci from the Institute of Polar Sciences of the state-run Council for National Research, or CNR. “We aren’t yet able to understand if it was a deep or superficial detachment, but the size of it seems very big, judging from the preliminary images and information received.”
The CNR has estimated that the Marmolada glacier could disappear entirely in the next 25-30 years if current climatic trends continue, given that it lost 30% of its volume and 22% of its area from 2004-2015.
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