A piece of a glacier breaks off in the Dolomites, taking several mountaineers with it on the way down into the valley. At least six people are killed. The accident is likely to be related to the drought and heat in the country.
A fatal accident occurs on the Marmolada, the highest mountain in the Dolomites.
(dpa)/pop./cov. With brutal thunder, masses of ice, snow and rocks fall from a glacier in northern Italy into the valley. They drag mountaineers with them, some to their deaths. At least six people died in the massive glacier fall on the Marmolada, the highest mountain in the Dolomites, on Sunday, as a spokeswoman for the Veneto region’s rescue control center confirmed on request.
According to regional president Maurizio Fugatti, up to 14 other alpinists were injured, one of them seriously. More victims were feared. Initially, nothing was known about the nationality from official sources. According to the newspaper “La Repubblica”, two of the injured were foreign alpinists, ten people were missing.
A number of cell phone videos showed how the avalanche fell over the rock faces of the massif into the valley. She also plowed down one of the main access routes to the 3,343-meter mountain, which featured several rope teams. At least two were hit. A spokesman for the Italian mountain rescue service told the German Press Agency that it was initially unclear whether there were individual mountaineers at the scene of the accident in addition to the rope teams.
The footage of the large ice avalanche in Marmolada today in close proximity.
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Indeed an impressive sequence pic.twitter.com/zDo4q40qOP
— Alpine-Adriatic Meteorological Society (@aametsoc) July 3, 2022
All mountain rescuers in the area from the Veneto and Trentino-South Tyrol regions were alerted. They flew five helicopters up the mountain and recovered the dead and injured. Some dog teams were used to search for other victims.
Because of the danger of new glacial falls, the search for further victims has been interrupted for the time being. As the emergency services announced on Sunday evening, the mountain rescuers were withdrawn from the flank of the mountain. First of all, it must be clarified how safe the situation is for the helpers. The helicopters continued to operate. The entire glacier was closed. The people who were stuck above the scene of the accident were brought down into the valley by helicopter. There, based on the cars in the parking lots, it was also checked who could still be under the avalanche.
«Stay as far away from this glacier as possible»
Carlo Budel, the host of the Capanna Punta Penia refuge, spoke in an Instagram video of the “worst possible time and day on which the chunk could come loose”. Shortly after midday, countless mountaineers were out and about on the popular massif on a summery Sunday. Budel asked all alpinists not to come to the Marmolada until further notice. “Stay as far away from this glacier as possible,” warned the innkeeper.
“We heard a loud noise, typical of a landslide,” said an eyewitness to the Ansa news agency. “After that we saw an avalanche of snow and ice fall at high speed towards the valley and we knew that something bad had happened.” The avalanche is said to have rolled around three hundred meters.
Mountain rescuer Luigi Felicetti reported: «When we arrived on site, we were presented with an incredible picture. There were blocks of ice and huge stones everywhere. Then we started looking for people.”
Prime Minister Mario Draghi expressed his condolences to the victims and their families in the evening and announced that he would be kept up to date by civil defense and regional politicians.
Temperature record the day before
There was initially no official information on the cause of the accident – however, everything indicates that the high temperatures of the past few days, weeks and months are likely to play a role. According to media reports, a record value of ten degrees was measured on the summit of the mountain on Saturday. “I’ve never seen anything like it on the Marmolada. It wasn’t a normal avalanche like in winter,” said a mountain rescuer. He compared the accident to a building and spoke of a “structural failure”.
Italy registered much less precipitation than usual last winter, and many glaciers now lack snow to protect them from the sun and the warm temperatures.
Messner: “Happens every day”
Several Italian newspapers quoted the South Tyrolean alpinist Reinhold Messner on Sunday. He has climbed to Punta Rocca several times, but not for many years. “The ice has almost completely melted there,” said Messner. The reason is clear: global warming is leading to glacier melt and increasing the likelihood that a piece of the glacier will detach. “What happened there happens every day on all glaciers,” said Messner.