The separated ice blocks are huge, estimated to be 200 meters wide, 80 meters high and 60 meters deep
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Frances D'emilio
ROME — 12 on Monday due to thunderstorm The search for more than one hiker was blocked. The day wasn't explained after a huge mass of the Italian Alpine glacier broke and sent ice, snow and rock avalanches to the slopes. Authorities say the known death toll is seven.
"I hope the numbers stop here," said Veneto Governor Lucazaia, whose northeastern region of Italy is adjacent to the Dolomite Mountains, which includes the Marmorada Glacier. .. He spoke in Kanazei, a resort town with Morg on Icelink.
Another regional leader, Maurizio Fugatti, said 14 had not yet been explained by Monday afternoon. 10 Italians, 3 Czechs, 1 Austria. "We were contacted by our family because these people didn't go home," said Fugatti in the Trentino-Alto Adige Alpine area.
In the mountain parking lot, there were four cars left with untracked occupants. Two cars had plates from the Czech Republic, one from Germany and the fourth from Hungary.
Fugatti raised the possibility that some of his family would not know their status during the vacation and would only check in to relatives at the end of the vacation.
Authorities said at least three of the dead were Italians. According to Italian news reports, one of the deceased is from the Czech Republic and is more widely known in English as the Czech Republic.
On Sunday, officials said nine people were injured, but at a press conference in the resort town of Kanazei on Monday, there were eight officials, two of whom were "delicate." He said he was hospitalized in a serious condition.
Zaia said the hospitalization included two Germans and a 40-year-old patient who had not yet been identified.
While dozens of hikers were on an excursion, a snowfall roared down.
After meeting with the families of some of the dead, Italian Prime Minister Mario Dragi, adjacent to officials, expressed "the most sincere, affectionate and sincere intimacy" to the families. ..
He looked moody and demanded that he take action to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. "This is certainly an unpredictable drama," Dragi said, responding to several experts who said the avalanche caused by the collapse of the glacier was unpredictable.
But what happened "certainly depends on the deterioration of the environment and the climate," the Prime Minister said.
The Marmorada glacier has shrunk over decades, and scientists at the government's CNR Research Center say it will not exist within 25-30 years.
Dragi said, "Italy gathers today" around the affected families. "The government needs to ponder what happened and take action, so it is very unlikely or even possible that what happened will be repeated."
The isolated part of the glacier was huge, estimated to be 200 meters wide, 80 meters high and 60 meters deep. Zaia likened the avalanche to "a block of ice in an apartment building (size) with debris and a block of cyclopean rock."
"I can't say anything but the facts. The facts show that high temperatures are not in favor of these situations," Zia told reporters.
Italy is on the verge of heat waves for several weeks, and Alpine rescue teams said last week the temperature at glacial altitude exceeded 10 C (50 F), but usually Should be below freezing at this time. Year.
Drones were used to look for what was missing and to check safety, but even drones stopped working when a thunderstorm hit the area late at night. I had to do it.
It was not immediately clear why the apex of the glacier collapsed and thundered the slope at a speed of about 300 kph (about 200 mph) estimated by experts.
However, high temperature was widely cited as a possible factor.
Polar science researcher at Italy's National CNR Research Center said the long heat wave from May to June was the hottest in northern Italy for almost 20 years. I did.
"It's absolutely unusual," Gabrielli said in an interview on Italian state television on Monday. Like other experts, he said it was impossible to predict when or when the Serak (the peak from the glacial overhang) would break, as it did on Sunday.
A rustic shelter along the hillside said that temperatures at the 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) level recently reached 24 degrees Celsius (75F).
The Marmorada Mountains glaciers are the largest in the Dolomite Mountains in northeastern Italy. People ski with it in winter. However, glaciers have melted rapidly over the last few decades, much of which has disappeared.
The Mediterranean Basin, which includes South European countries like Italy, has been identified by UN experts as a "climate change hotspot" that is likely to suffer from heat waves and water shortages, among other results. it was done.
Pope Francis, who made caring for the planet a priority for his pathology, tweeted an invitation to pray for the victims of the avalanche and their families.
"The tragedy we are experiencing in climate change must urgently seek new ways to respect people and nature," Francis writes.
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