With all the clues that are being added to the crossword clue list, you may sometimes find yourself having a hard time getting the right word for the crossword puzzle. The injured were flown to several hospitals in the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto, according to rescue services.Īs in other cases of disasters amid nature in Italy, prosecutors opened an investigation to see if there was any indication of possible wrongdoing linked to the avalanche.Crossword puzzles are one of the oldest word games that are still being played to this day. In separate comments to Italian state television, Milan called the recent temperatures “extreme heat” for the peak. Avalanches in general aren't predictable, he said, and heat's influence on a glacier “is even more impossible to predict.” “There are so many factors that could be involved,'' Milan said. “The temperatures of these days clearly had influence” on the glacier's partial collapse, Maurizio Fugatti, the president of Trento Province, which borders Marmolada, told Sky TG24 news.īut Milan stressed that high heat, which soared unusually above 10 C (50 F) on Marmolada's peak in recent days, was only one possible factor in Sunday's tragedy. But the intense heat wave gripping Italy since late June loomed as a possible factor. It wasn't immediately clear what caused the section of ice to break away and rush down the peak's slope. The Alpine rescue service said in a tweet that the segment broke off near Punta Rocca (Rock Point), “along the itinerary normally used to reach the peak.” SUEM said the avalanche consisted of a “pouring down of snow, ice and rock.” The detached section is know as a serac, or pinnacle of ice.ĭubbed the “queen of the Dolomites,” Marmolada rises about 3,300 meters (about 11,000 feet) and is the highest of the 18 peaks in that eastern range of the Italian Alps, offering spectacular views of other Alpine peaks. Some of those making the trek in the area where the avalanche barreled through were tied together by rope, according to local emergency services.īut Milan said some of the hikers might be able to get down by themselves, including by using the peak's cable car. The SUEM dispatch service, which is based in the nearby Veneto region, said 18 people who were above the area where the ice struck would be evacuated by the Alpine rescue corps. In early evening, a light rain began to fall. Rescuers said blocks of ice were continuing to tumble down.
Temporarily, the search by helicopter and dogs for any more victims or missing was halted for the night while rescuers evaluated the risk that more of the glacier could break off, Walter Cainelli, after conducting a rescue mission with a search dog, told state television. The fast-moving avalanche "came down with a roar the could be heard at great distance,'' local online media site said. Of the hospitalized survivors, two were in grave condition, authorities said. Nationalities or ages of the dead weren't immediately available, Milan said. "We saw dead (people) and enormous chunks of ice, rock,'' exhausted-looking rescuer Luigi Felicetti told Italian state TV. experts as a “climate change hot spot,” likely to suffer heat waves and water shortages, among other consequences. The Mediterranean basin, shared by southern Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa, has been identified by U.N. But the glacier has been rapidly melting away in recent years.Įxperts at Italy’s state-run CNR research center, which has a polar sciences institute, says the glacier won't exist anymore in the next 25-30 years and much of its volume is already gone. The glacier, in the Marmolada range, is the largest in the Dolomite mountains in northeastern Italy and people ski there in the winter.