Draghi on glacier accident: “Italy is crying today”

After the glacier accident in the Dolomites with seven dead, the search for the missing is becoming increasingly difficult. The rescue could take weeks, it said. Italy’s Prime Minister Draghi expressed his condolences on site.

After the glacier broke off in Italy, numerous emergency services continue to search for buried people. The number of missing people fell from 14 to 13. The Austrian consulate was able to contact a missing compatriot, the Trentino authorities said. According to a spokesman, it was not yet clear whether he was on the mountain on the day of the accident and brought himself to safety.

The other missing persons were reported by their relatives because they no longer received any messages from them. This was explained by the regional president of Trentino-Alto Adige, Maurizio Fugatti, in Canazei at the foot of Mount Marmolada, where masses of ice and debris had buried several climbers on Sunday.

Draghi: take action

Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi visited the region and got an idea of ​​the accident. He sees a need for action to avoid such a disaster in the future. “The government needs to think about what happened and take action,” Draghi said in Canazei.

“Today Italy is crying for the victims,” ​​said Draghi. He also thanked the emergency services and expressed his condolences to the families of the dead, missing and injured. In Canazei, Draghi also met relatives of the victims. Draghi arrived in Canazei with a long delay because of a thunderstorm because his helicopter could not land.

Death toll at seven

The death toll is now seven. Four of them have been identified, according to media reports it should be three Italians and one Czech. Eight mountaineers were injured, including two Germans. Accordingly, it is a 67-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman. Both would be closely monitored. Whether they survive is uncertain.

The authorities continued to search for the owners of four cars with foreign license plates – including a German one. These parked in the parking lot, which is usually used by the mountaineers who hike towards the Marmolada summit.

Chunks of ice and rock make the search difficult

Since huge amounts of ice and rock slid into crevasses and crevasses after the glacier collapsed, it could take weeks or even longer for all buried people to be found and recovered. That said Maurizio Dellantonio, the president of the Italian mountain rescue service.

The crevices in the rock should be uncovered later this summer, thanks in part to melting ice, he predicted. “But if someone has fallen into crevasses at the top of the mountain, then it will be difficult,” Dellantonio said.

“It’s currently not possible to dig because the mass of ice has already settled and become hard,” Dellantonio said. “That would only work with mechanical equipment, but we can’t bring that up.” Because there is a danger that more chunks of ice will come loose and fall, no rescuers are allowed to enter the flank of the mountain for the time being.

Drone flights at the scene of the accident

Drones with thermal imaging cameras are used for the search. These are used to search for human bodies and material. The ice is sometimes up to ten meters thick, said the mountain rescuer.

The chances of finding survivors are “almost zero,” said Giorgio Gajer from the mountain rescue service of the Italian news agency AGI.

The search work had to be temporarily interrupted due to the bad weather. In any case, the emergency services no longer sent people directly onto the avalanche cone because they feared that more pieces of the glacier could break away. A chunk of 200 meters wide, 60 meters high and 80 meters deep hangs dangerously over the slope, said the civil defense.

Scientist: Unusually warm weather

The Marmolada Glacier is the largest glacier in the Dolomites and is located on the north side of the Marmolada Group, which lies in the provinces of Trento and Belluno. The ice sheet broke near Punta Rocca on the ascent route to the summit. Footage taken from a nearby mountain hut shows masses of snow mixed with boulders rushing down into the valley with a deafening noise. It is still unknown how many people were around the glacier at the time of the accident, spokeswoman for rescue workers Michela Canova told AFP.

The Italian media are talking about the worst catastrophe of this kind that has ever happened in the Alps.

University of Rome Drei geologist Massimo Frezzotti told AFP the glacial rupture was caused by unusually warm weather as a result of climate change. The day before the accident, a record temperature of ten degrees had been measured on the summit of the glacier.

Messner: Consequence of climate change

The well-known mountaineer Reinhold Messner said that the glacier collapse on the Marmolada was the result of climate change and global warming. According to Messner, these would “eat away” the glaciers. The changes on the glaciers of the Alps in recent years have been dramatic, agrees mountain guide Cesare Pastore. But Pastore doesn’t want to blame his colleagues, who led mountaineers up the Marmolada yesterday.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ranks melting glaciers and snow among the ten most serious threats from global warming. By the end of the century, the glaciers in Scandinavia, Central Europe and the Caucasus could lose between 60 and 80 percent in mass.

With information from Jörg Seisselberg, ARD Studio Rome