Avalanche in Dolomite mountains kills five
An avalanche in the Dolomite mountains in Italy has claimed the lives of five German climbers, among them a 17-year-old girl and her father, rescuers have said. The climbers travelled in separate groups, scaling Cima Vertana in the Ortler Alps, around 16:00 local time on Saturday the 1st November.
A group of three “was fully swept away by the avalanche,” with all of them drying, according to the Italian Alpine rescue service Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico. The father and daughter were separately carried away by the avalanche. Their bodies were recovered the following day. Two members of the third party survived.
The survivors raised the alarm to trigger the rescue operation. Spokesperson for the Sulden Mountain Rescue Service, Olaf Reinstadler, told German media that the avalanche on the 3,545 metre (11,630 feet) mountain, known as Vertainspitze, may have been caused by a recent snow drift which did not bond with the ice below.
Climbing tours, he said, were popular, and the weather conditions were good. But he wondered why the climbers did so late in the afternoon, since their decent would have lasted until nighttime.
The bodies of three climbers were recovered on Saturday before rescue efforts had to be suspended as a result of safety conditions and fading light. The Alpine rescue service said that fog and low visibility meant that helicopters could not take off at first light on the Sunday.
Once conditions improved however, rescuers, with avalanche dog units, were airlifted to 2,600 metres before continuing on foot. By late in the morning, the bodies of the two missing climbers, the father and daughter, were located.
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