Canazei (Italy) — Rescuers discovered body parts and equipment Tuesday as they searched for hikers who were missing after a devastating avalanche. This was largely due to rising temperatures and melting glaciers.
Officials had initially believed that 13 hikers might still be missing. However, the province of Trento reduced the number to five on Tuesday after eight other people checked in with authorities.
Although Monday’s rain hampered the search, Tuesday’s sunny weather allowed helicopters to transport more rescue teams to the Marmolada glacier site, east of Bolzano, in the Dolomite Mountains. Despite the fact that hopes of finding someone alive were dimming, the helicopters brought additional rescue teams to the area on Tuesday.
A large chunk of the glacier was cut off by Sunday’s storm, triggering an avalanche, which sent torrents down the mountainside, dumping rocks, ice and debris onto the hikers below. Officials claimed that at least seven people died.
“We need to be very clear. Finding someone alive with this kind of event is very unlikely, very distant because the mechanical action caused by this type avalanche has very large impacts on people,” stated Alex Barattin, of the Alpine Rescue Service.
Nicola Casagli, a geologist at Florence University and an avalanche expert, stated that the impact of the glacier melt on hikers was more than a snow avalanche, and that it would have taken them completely off guard.
He said that ice and debris avalanches are unpredictable, impulsive and rapid events. They can also involve large numbers and reach very high speeds. There is no way to escape the danger or see the problem before it happens. You’ve been already hit.
Associated Press photos taken during a helicopter inspection of the site showed a large hole in the glacier that looked like it had been cut out of blue-gray ice with a giant ice cream scooper.
Rescue crews were still unable to reach the terrain and used drones to search for survivors. Helicopters flew overhead to search for signs of life. Some helicopters also used equipment to detect cellular signals. Two rescuers were still on the scene overnight and were joined Tuesday morning by two more.
Maurizio Delantonio is the national president of Alpine Rescue Service. He said that teams found clothing, equipment, and body parts on the debris. This was evidence of the avalanche’s devastating impact on hikers.
“We have been able to recover so many fragments in the past two days. These fragments are extremely painful to those who pick them up. He said that they are very painful for the person who picks them up, and then for those who need to analyze them.” “Personally, I believe that the surface results will match the ones we find beneath the ice, or digging if we have the chance.”
Because of continued instability and the possibility that more chunks might fall, officials closed all access routes to the glacier and chair lifts to it for hikers.
Premier Mario Draghi visited Canazei’s rescue base on Monday. He acknowledged that avalanches can be unpredictable, but said the fate of the disaster “certainly depends upon the deterioration in the climate situation.”
Italy is currently experiencing an early summer heatwave and the worst drought in Northern Italy in 70 years. Experts believe that there was a rare amount of snowfall in winter, which exposed the Italian Alps’ glaciers to summer heat and melting.
Renato Colucci, from the Institute of Polar Sciences of Italy’s Council for National Research (or CNR), stated that “we are therefore in the worst conditions for detachments of this type, when there is so much heat and water running at the bottom.” “We don’t know if it was deep or superficial, but it looks very large, judging by the information and images we have received.”
CNR estimates that Marmolada glacier may disappear completely in 25-30 years, if current climate trends continue. It has lost 30% of its volume since 2004 and 22% of it’s area between 2005-2015.
Casagli stated that the Marmolada incident was not typical, but predicted that such destructive avalanches would become more common as global temperatures rise.
He said that the fact that it occurred in a hot summer with unusual temperatures should be a wake up call for people to realize that such phenomena, although rare, are possible. They will only get more common if we don’t take action to combat the effects of climate changes.
