The number of missing hikers rises to at least 20 after the detachment, this Sunday, of a Marmolada glacier, in the Italian Alps, and that caused the death of six people and 9 injured, according to sources from the Alpine Rescue.
Today the search for the disappeared will continue, although drones equipped with thermal cameras were used overnight, capable of identifying the source of heat emitted by a person even in the dark.
The climatic conditions will be decisive to evaluate the direct intervention of the rescuers, because the cold and low temperatures are essential to guarantee a minimum of safety in operations, given that more landslides could occur.
At the moment there are 6 confirmed fatalities: three Italians, a Czechoslovakian, plus a man and a woman not yet identified.
Rescuers rule out that there may be survivors due to the violence of the avalanche of ice, snow and rocks that descended at more than 200 kilometers per hour after the collapse of a serac, as these fractures in the glaciers are called, between Punta Rocca and Punta Penia.
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At the moment there are 6 confirmed fatalities: three Italians, a Czechoslovakian, plus an as yet unidentified man and woman who have been transferred to the sports palace in nearby Canazei, and it is believed that among the missing there are also people of these nationalities. plus other Romanians.
The car parks in the area are also being controlled, from where the cable cars depart to the top of Marmolada, as there are 16 cars whose owners have not yet returned for them. For the researchers, the avalanche in Marmolada is “an unimaginable disaster, a carnage for which it will be very difficult to identify the exact identity of the victims because the bodies were dismembered“.
The detachment of this part of the glacier It occurred after several days of high temperatures and the area reached a record of 10 degrees. The tragedy returns to reflect on global warming that is making the alpine glaciers disappear. According to the expert from the Italian Research Center (CNR) Roberto Colucci, these episodes will happen again, because according to a recently published study “in 25 or 30 years the Marmolada glacier will not exist.”
“At this rate, it will probably happen sooner. The most general projection is that by 2100, at best, 70 percent of alpine glaciers will have disappeared, at worst 96 percent. 3,500 meters, on the other hand, in twenty years there will be nothing else because glaciers like Marmolada are now in total imbalance,” Colucci explained to the media.
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