Death toll from Italian glacier collapse rises to 9 after 2 bodies recovered

Rome, Jul 6 (EFE).- The death toll from the collapse of part of a glacier in the Italian Alps has risen to nine, after two more bodies were found on Wednesday, according to local authorities.

Four of the deceased have already been identified by their relatives, the president of the autonomous province of Trento, Maurizio Fugatti, said.

Three people remain missing and the search continues by air, using drones and helicopters, because of the danger of fresh landslides due to high temperatures in the area.

Fugatti said the death toll was still provisional, and in recent hours mountaineers and people who were believed to be missing have been found safe.

Seven people were injured, four of whom have been hospitalized in Trento and three in the Veneto region.

Mountain rescue teams using drones and helicopters were still searching for human remains and objects on the slopes of the Marmolada, the highest peak in the Italian Dolomites, where the large block of ice detached from the glacier on Sunday and hurtled through a well-trodden path to the summit. It brought with it snow, rock and ice.

Walter Cainelli, the president of the Trentino Alpine rescue corps, told the press that it would be difficult to recover the bodies from the avalanche site due to the scale of the natural disaster, which sent a “river of ice, stone and rock” down the slope the size of two 30-meter-thick football pitches.

Italy’s prime minister Mario Draghi, visiting the region Monday to meet with first responders, linked the glacial collapse to the “deterioration of the environment.”

The collapse came after an intense heatwave in Italy. EFE

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