A glacier broke loose in the Italian Alps, one of the victims is from the Czech Republic – SME

July 4, 2022 at 7:37 a.m. I Updated at 11:50 a.m. So far there are six victims, 16 people are missing. ROME. A huge piece of glacier broke loose near the top of Mount Marmolada in the Italian Alps on Sunday. There are six victims so far, four have been identified, of which three are Italians, one of the victims is from the Czech Republic, Il Messaggero wrote. The article continues under the video advertisement The article continues under the video advertisement This morning, the Mountain Service increased the estimate of the number of missing people to 20 people, according to the Italian media, among them are Italians, Germans, Romanians and Czechs. At least eight people were injured during the glacier slide, including two foreigners, but their nationalities are not disclosed by the Italian media. Some media, such as SkyTg24 television or the ANSA agency, write on their websites about nine injured, La Repubblica about ten. ANSA also stated that identification will be difficult , because the bodies were “torn apart by a stream of ice and stones”. There is a threat of further avalanches. In the evening, ground rescuers were called back from the site due to a possible further slide of the glacier, five deployed helicopters continued to search. The search continued through the night with the help of drones with thermal cameras. At dawn, rescue teams resumed operations. “The risk of further collapses is high,” Walter Cainelli, who directs the local mountain and speleological rescue service, told La Repubblica. .The Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is scheduled to arrive at the venue this morning. Two groups of relatives of the victims have already arrived, whose bodies were taken to the winter stadium in the village of Canazei, where a mourning hall was set up. In Canazei, there is also an operations center coordinating the search for the missing. The first witnesses spoke of four ropes along the wall, and according to what the investigators have so far managed to reconstruct, the avalanche could have collapsed two of them. Local authorities have set up a special line where people can report missing loved ones. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi also expressed his condolences to the survivors, who also said that he is regularly informed about the progress of the rescue work and plans to come to the scene of the tragedy. It was not the usual winter avalanche.According to the mountain service, a large piece of ice with a stone broke off near Punta Rocca, along the ascent route to Marmolada. Dozens of people who were near the site were taken by rescuers to the valley. The injured were taken to several nearby hospitals. “We heard a noise like it’s raining very hard, we turned around and saw six or seven people running to escape, but a black wave arrived very quickly and covered everything,” she said in an interview with by Tgr Rai Trentino station, a woman who went up the mountain with her husband. “There were mountain guides who calmed us down after a while and called the rescuers. They told us what to do,” she added. if we would like to make a comparison with the construction, we could talk about the failure of the structure,” one of the rescuers told ANSA. “It is clear that this is a meteorological issue that even the best guides cannot predict,” he added. Extreme heat On Saturday, he was on at the top of Marmolada, which is the highest mountain in the Dolomites at 3,343 meters above sea level, a temperature record of ten degrees Celsius was measured. “This is extremely hot,” Alpine rescuer Walter Milan told Italian state TV RAI. “That’s something completely extraordinary,” he added. Carlo Budel from the Capanna Punta Penie hut spoke on Instagram about “the worst possible time and day when the piece could have come loose”. In the early afternoon on a summer Sunday, there were a large number of climbers on the popular massif. Budel asked all alpinists not to go to Marmolada until further notice. “Stay away from this glacier as much as possible,” he warned tourists.