Status: 09.07.2022 2:48 p.m
Six days after the glacier accident on the Marmolada in northern Italy, the last missing alpinist has been found dead. A total of eleven people died in the accident.
The number of officially confirmed fatalities after the glacier collapsed in the northern Italian Dolomites has risen to eleven. On Saturday, the emergency services assumed that there were no other people under the ice and rubble masses on Mount Marmolada. The last five alpinists who had been reported missing were assigned to the bodies by means of DNA comparisons.
The dead are six men and three women from Italy and two Czech climbers. According to media reports, the youngest victim was a 22-year-old man from Vicenza, Italy. Eight people were injured. Among them are a man and a woman from Germany who are being treated in a clinic in the province of Belluno. The hospital said her condition was stable.
The search should go on anyway
Maurizio Fugatti, the regional president of Trentino-Alto Adige, announced that the search teams would continue to work on the mountain massif. In the next few days, three teams will work in three different zones of the avalanche cone. So far, the search had been limited to one area at a time. Dogs were also used. The emergency services are looking for other body parts and personal belongings of the accident victims, said Fugatti.
In the course of this week, six dead were initially identified by relatives. The other five bodies could only be matched to the missing persons through DNA comparisons. These were carried out by a special unit of the Carabinieri. “At this point in time, we do not assume that other people were involved,” said Carabinieri captain Giampietro Lago.
The dead, laid out in the Canazei ice stadium below the Marmolada, could be handed over to their families if the investigating public prosecutor allows this. Lago assumed that this would happen soon after the DNA analysis was completed. The Mayor of Canazei had ordered a day of mourning for Saturday, in which all the municipalities of Val di Fassa took part.
Climate crisis a reason for glacier break-off
Last Sunday, a massive chunk broke off the glacier on the north side of the Marmolada and fell into the valley together with water and debris at a speed of up to 300 km/h. The alpinists who were on the normal route were carried away. According to experts, the high temperatures of the past few days and weeks, which are likely to be related to climate change, were one of the reasons for the accident.