At least six people have died, nine are injured and 16 are missing in Italy after a glacier in the Alps collapsed. There was an initial information that among the missing are also Romanian citizen, but the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, on Monday, that among the people affected after the collapse of the glacier in the Alps, no Romanian citizens were identified. Immediately after the incident, a crisis cell was set up at the Embassy, according to the quoted source.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that a family from Romania that had signaled the disappearance of 3 Romanian citizens after the collapse of the glacier in the Alps recently announced that it had contacted them.
Romanian tourists about whom nothing was known are out of any danger. They were allegedly accommodated during this period in a location without access to mobile phones and internet. The MFA states that there are currently no other requests or reports regarding the disappearance of other Romanian citizens.
The huge block of ice broke due to the high temperatures of the last period. Yesterday, in the area where the tragedy occurred, temperatures rose to 10 degrees Celsius.
The huge block of ice broke off on Sunday from the Marmolada glacier in the Alps in northern Italy, causing an avalanche, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.
The provisional toll is 6 dead, 9 injured and about 20 missing after the avalanche caused on Sunday by the Marmolada glacier in the Italian Alps, Gianpaolo Bottacin, regional adviser for civil protection in Veneto, told ANSA.
“The situation is evolving and it is difficult at this time to give a precise explanation of what happened,” said Gianpaolo Bottacin.
Four of the six victims were identified. Three of them are Italian citizens, and the fourth is of Czech nationality. A man and a woman are to be identified. Among the missing are certainly Italians, Germans, Czechs and Romanians, reports ANSA. Among the victims would be guides, as well.
Meanwhile, the relatives of the victims and the missing arrived in Canazei. The search for the missing continued during the night.
The avalanche is “an unimaginable disaster, a carnage, it will be difficult for us to identify exactly the identity of the victims because the bodies were dismembered” by the flow of ice and stones, investigators told ANSA.
Five helicopters and several rescue dog teams were sent to the area to search for people trapped under the snow, pieces of ice and stones.
Marmolada Glacier is the largest glacier in the Dolomites (Alps), located on the northern slope of Mount Marmolada.