At Least 7 Hikers Dead After Glacier Collapse in Italy Amid Record Heat

“The Marmolada glacier collapse is a natural disaster linked directly to climate change,” Poul Christoffersen, professor in glaciology at the University of Cambridge, told Bloomberg. “High elevation glaciers, such as the Marmolada, are often steep and relying on cold temperatures below zero degrees Celsius to keep them stable. But climate change means more and more meltwater.”

Rainfall on Monday hampered rescue efforts, but sunny weather Tuesday allowed the search to resume—even as hopes dimmed of finding survivors. The glacier was still so unstable that rescuers were forced to use drones and helicopters to survey the area. Rescuers on Tuesday said they had spotted body parts and abandoned gear among the debris, the Associated Press reported.

In addition to the deaths, eight people were taken to the hospital with injuries from the avalanche. Authorities say they may need to use DNA testing to identify some of the bodies.

“I heard a noise, at around 2pm, and when I looked up I saw the avalanche, but didn’t realise then what it was,” Lucia Novak, who works at a nearby mountain restaurant, told the Guardian. “Within five minutes everything changed—we had this beautiful sunshine, but then it turned dark, cold and windy. I could see people walking down the slope, then nothing. I called the emergency services straight away. I’ve been working here since 2003 and have never seen anything like it.”

The Marmolada glacier, which sits at the highest peak in the Dolomites mountain region, has been hit hard by climate change. In 2020, researchers at Padua University in Italy warned that much of the glacier could be gone in the next two decades. The glacier has lost around 80% of its volume since the 1950s, and the rate of ice loss increased over the past decade from around 5 hectares per year (12.3 acres) to about 9 hectares per year (22.3 acres).

“Its disappearance approaches ever closer,” Aldino Bondesan, a glaciologist at Padua University, told The Independent of the glacier in 2020. “It may have no more than 15 years of life left.”

It’s not just the Marmolada glacier that’s in trouble. The Dolomites saw an unusually dry winter, which, combined with record-breaking temperatures across Europe over the past few weeks, is making already at-risk glaciers even more unstable. A study published in 2019 found that, by the end of the century under a worst-case emissions scenario, 90% of Alpine glaciers could completely disappear.