The day after the glacier collapsed in the Dolomites, the search for the missing continues. High-ranking visitors are announced from Rome near the scene of the accident – and more and more information about the victims and those buried is becoming known.
In the avalanche accident in the northern Italian Dolomites, two Germans are likely to be among the mountaineers affected. The Federal Foreign Office assumes this, as a spokeswoman for the German Press Agency said on Monday in Berlin.
Around noon, the health authorities in Belluno, southeast of the scene of the accident, announced that two Germans rescued on the mountain were being treated in a clinic. It was a 67-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman. Both would be closely monitored. It helped that the clinic staff spoke German and were able to establish contact with the family.
Mario Draghi comes to the accident area
Meanwhile, on Monday, search and rescue operations continued on the more than 3,340-meter-high Marmolada mountain – the highest in the Dolomites on the border of the Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto regions. Helicopters and drones searched the area where an avalanche of snow, ice and debris swept away several mountaineers on Sunday. Six people lost their lives as of Monday morning, a spokesman for the Autonomous Province of Trentino confirmed. According to the Ansa news agency, the number of missing rose to 17. Eight people suffered injuries.
Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi announced himself for lunchtime. According to the government, the 74-year-old head of government wanted to visit the situation center in Canazei at the foot of the Marmolada, which the authorities set up there because of the accident. He wanted to find out about the current situation there together with the head of civil protection. Meanwhile, Italy’s head of state Sergio Mattarella called the presidents of the two regions to express his sympathy, as the Quirinal Palace announced on Monday. Other politicians also expressed their condolences.
According to Ansa, the first relatives of missing persons arrived in Canazei on Monday to ask the emergency services for information about their relatives. The authorities are currently investigating the owners of cars parked in the parking lot, which is mainly used by mountaineers.
Messner sees consequences of climate change
However, it has not yet been finally clarified why the avalanche came off the Marmolada. The video of a hut owner showed how the masses of rock and snow thundered down the valley on Sunday. It is possible that the high temperatures of the past few days, weeks and months favored the demolition. The South Tyrolean extreme mountaineer Reinhold Messner sees the avalanche as a clear consequence of climate change and global warming. “These eat away the glaciers,” said the 77-year-old of the German Press Agency. The glaciers would become increasingly unstable because of the unusually warm temperatures.
