Four days after part of the Marmolada peak glacier collapsed, the highest in the Italian Dolomites, emergency teams continue to find mortal remains. This Wednesday the helicopters and drones that fly over the disaster have sighted two new bodies, those of two men who would be on the list of missing. Therefore, the balance of the tragedy becomes nine dead and three missing.
Rescuers have also found the remains of a woman, but it is not clear if it is a victim who had already been found or if she is part of the three missing. The bodies have suffered significant damage from the avalanche.
Of the fatalities, four have already been recognized by their relatives, while two others would probably be those of two Czech citizens whose car was parked near the trails.
As in previous days, the Alpine Relief is choosing to search for the missing with a deployment of drones and helicopters in the face of the danger of new landslides due to the high temperatures that all of Italy is experiencing these days. The priority is not to put more human lives at risk, but also to find their bodies.
Luca Zaia, president of the Veneto region, considers it a "moral duty" towards his relatives. The president of the autonomous province of Trento, Maurizio Fugatti, has also said that today's findings show that "everything possible is being done to try to search for these people."
Fugatti, however, called for "prudence" and recalled that it is a provisional balance. At first it was feared that twenty people were missing, after their families had given the alert and some witnesses had said that they saw thirty hikers climb to the top. However, as the hours passed, several safe people appeared.
The Trento Prosecutor's Office has already opened an investigation to try to find the causes of this tragedy, which happened after a record temperature of 10 degrees was reached at more than 3,000 meters in recent days. Some relatives have accused the authorities of having left access to the glacier open despite the dangerous conditions it was in. According to some witnesses, some guides had warned about the risk that the Marmolada was running, which in the last 10 years has lost more than 30% of its mass due to the climate crisis.
“We exclude that the event was foreseeable. We will open all the doors in front of us to verify what has happened and reconstruct the facts, but we do not want any lamb to sacrifice before public opinion”, declared the Trento prosecutor, Sandro Raimondi.
