northern Italy
Germans released from clinic after Dolomite disaster
A rescue helicopter flies over the Punta Rocca glacier in the Italian Alps. Photo: Luca Bruno/AP/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Two Germans are allowed to leave the hospital after the accident in the Dolomites. They were lucky in their misfortune and survived. The last missing man has just been found and found dead.
A week after the devastating glacier in the Dolomites, both injured Germans left the hospital.
While the eleventh and last missing mountaineer was found on the Marmolada in northern Italy and was found dead, a 67-year-old man was picked up by relatives on Saturday and taken back to Germany. A day later, a 58-year-old woman was also released from a clinic in the city of Belluno, as announced by the President of the Veneto Region, Luca Zaia. He also published a picture of the woman sitting in a wheelchair.
No memory of the accident
She couldn’t remember the incident herself, the woman wrote in a letter to the clinic staff, which the German Press Agency was able to see. Her condition improved “very slowly but steadily”. She thanked all the helpers who had tried very hard. “I appreciate it very much.”
The German man was seen in a photo from the clinic with bandaged arms and hands and bruises on his forehead and legs. Next to a doctor, he appears to be smiling behind a mask.
The two tourists were luckier than the eleven dead in the tragedy. A funeral service was held on Saturday evening in the parish church of Canazei below Mount Doom. Relatives and helpers were also present at the moving celebration. Earlier, at 6 p.m., sirens wailed in the valley for a minute’s silence.
“The ice snatched the lives of women and men who did not know each other, with different biographies, from different places,” said Archbishop Lauro Tisi at the mass. “But now the pain of all those who weep for her is identical.”
All missing found
In the morning, the emergency services had found the last alpinist in the avalanche cone and brought it to the valley, who had been reported missing by his family. The death toll rose to eleven. Thanks to DNA comparisons, the last five alpinists, whose identity was still unclear, were assigned to the corpses. The Carabinieri, who carried out this evaluation, do not assume any further victims.
The dead are six men and three women from Italy and two Czech climbers. The youngest victim was 22 years old. Eight people were injured, including the two Germans.
search continues
Nevertheless, the search for body parts or personal material of the victims will continue on the mountain massif, announced Maurizio Fugatti, the regional president of Trentino-South Tyrol. The dead, who were laid out in the ice rink of Canazei below the Marmolada, should now soon be handed over to their families, it was said.
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 300 kilometers per hour. He caught the alpinists who were on the normal route and swept some of them 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.