Recuers are using any means at their disposal – including thermal drones – to search for over a dozen climbers that may have become trapped under the ice after a glacier gave way on Marmolada, the highest mountain in the Italian Dolomites.
Authories said they do not know how many people were victim to the avalanche, which has already claimed at least six lives and injured eight people.
"We found bodies torn apart, in a shapeless tide of ice and debris stretching over 1,000 metres (3,280 feet)," Gino Comelli from the Alpine Rescue Service told the Corriere della Sera daily.
The disaster struck one day after a record-high temperature of 10°C was recorded at the glacier's summit. Emergency services spokeswoman Michela Canova told AFP an "avalanche of snow, ice and rock" hit an access path at a time when there were several roped parties, "some of whom were swept away".
Italian emergency services are currently looking for...