Lump of glacier falls off Italian Alps, sparking avalanche that crushed at least 6 hikers to death
- Part of a glacier fell off and flew down an Italian mountain, killing at least six people.
- At least 17 more are missing. Rescuers are searching for survivors, but worry about further glacier collapses.
Part of a glacier fell off in the Italian Alps, sparking an avalanche that has killed at least six people and led to a hunt for survivors.
Officials said that at least 17 people were missing and eight people were injured after part of the glacier collapsed on Sunday evening, Reuters reported.
Italy's ANSA news agency reported on Monday that the missing toll had gone up to 19, and that it included 11 Italians, three Romanians, one French, one Austrian, and four people from the Czech Republic.
Italian newspaper Il Messaggero reported that the glacier chunk, made up of ice and rock, hurled down the mountain at 186 miles per hour.
Rescue efforts continued overnight on Sunday and into Monday, the report said. Drones are being used in the search on Monday, the Associated Press reported, as conditions there were too dangerous for dogs and people.
Those efforts, on the Marmolada mountain, are made more difficult due to fears that more glaciers could fall, officials said.
"The risk of further collapses is high," said Walter Cainelli, the president of the Trentino Alpine and Speleological Rescue, according to La Repubblica.
Officials and experts have not yet pointed to a cause of the collapse. But The Associated Press noted that Italy had been dealing with a heatwave since May, with temperatures unusually high at this time of year.
Walter Milan, a spokesperson for Italy's National Alpine and Cave Rescue Corps, told Italian TV that the mountain peak was experiencing "extreme heat" and that "clearly it's something abnormal."
But he also told the AP that "so many factors that could be involved" as avalanches are unpredictable.
The Alpine-Adriatic Meteorological Society tweeted that the glacier that fell had "destabilized at its base due to the large availability of melting water after weeks of extremely high and above average temperature."