Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi attributed the Marmolada glacier slide to “deterioration of the environment and climate situation” while visiting the Alpine region this Monday (4). At least seven people were killed and eight injured in an avalanche on Sunday.
“There was definitely an element of unpredictability to this tragedy, but it’s undoubtedly also related to environmental degradation and the climate situation,” Draghi said after speaking to rescuers searching for around 14 missing people in Canazei (north).
Luca Zaia, governor of the Veneto region, said two of the injured were in critical and intensive care.
The head of rescue services, Giorgio Gajer, admitted that hopes of finding survivors were “almost zero”.
The disaster came a day after a record 10°C temperature recorded at the top of the glacier weakened by global warming, in addition to the heatwave that hit the entire Italian peninsula and accelerated its melting.
It is also a very dangerous situation for the rescue teams who cannot advance on foot,” he said.
Helicopters are flying over the area, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.
According to local media, at least three Italians and one Czech were among the dead.
Among the injured, two Germans, a 67-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman, were at risk of death, the Veneto health agency said.
According to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Gino Comelli, one of the high mountain rescuers, said: “We found some mutilated corpses among the ice pile and debris spread over 1,000 meters.”
accelerated dissolution
The collapse of part of the Marmolada glacier is “a result of current climatic conditions, namely an expected temperature event that coincides with the problem of global warming,” said Professor Massimo Frezzotti, from the Department of Science at the University of Rome. AFP.
“The tragedies we experience due to climate change should prompt us urgently to seek new ways that respect people and nature,” Pope Francis said on Twitter.
“It’s a miracle we’re alive,” said engineer Stefano Dal Moro, who was on the glacier with an Israeli friend.
“We heard a sound and at that moment a sea of ice broke out. There was no point in running, just praying,” he told the newspaper Corriere della Sera.
The glacier broke close to the city of Punta Rocca, the usual way to reach its summit.
– Queen of the Dolomites – Images taken from a shelter show snow mixed with boulders rolling down the mountainside.
Other footage taken by tourists with their mobile phones shows the avalanche from afar, destroying everything in its path.
Nicknamed the “Queen of the Dolomites”, the Marmolada glacier is the largest of this mountain range in northern Italy, which is part of the Alps.
According to press calculations, the speed of the platoon was about 300 km per hour.
Melting ice and snow is one of the top 10 threats caused by global warming, disrupting ecosystems and threatening infrastructure, according to a report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on March 1.
The IPCC warned that glaciers in Scandinavia, Central Europe and the Caucasus could lose 60-80% of their mass by the end of the century.
source: Noticias
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