Body parts, gear found on Italian glacier after avalanche

CANAZEI, Italy (AP) — Rescuers found body parts and equipment as they searched Tuesday for hikers missing following a powerful avalanche that killed at least seven people and is being blamed in large part on rising temperatures that are melting glaciers.

Officials initially feared 13 hikers were still missing, but the province of Trento on Tuesday reduced the number of people unaccounted-for to five, after eight others checked in with authorities.

Rain hampered the search Monday, but sunny weather on Tuesday allowed helicopters to bring more rescue teams up to the site on the Marmolada glacier, east of Bolzano in the Dolomite mountains, even as hopes dimmed of finding anyone alive.

A huge chunk of the glacier cleaved off Sunday, sparking an avalanche that sent torrents of ice, rock and debris plowing down the mountainside onto unsuspecting hikers below. At least seven people were killed, officials said.

"We have to be clear, finding someone alive with this type of event is a very remote possibility, very remote, because the mechanical action of this type of avalanche has a very big impact on people," said Alex Barattin of the Alpine Rescue Service.

Nicola Casagli, a geologist and avalanche expert at Florence University, said the impact of the glacier collapse on the hikers was greater than a mere snow avalanche and would have taken them completely by surprise.

The terrain was still so unstable that rescue crews were staying off to the side and using drones to try to find any survivors or signs of life while helicopters searched overhead, some using equipment to detect cellular pings. Two rescuers remained on site overnight, and were joined by more rescuers Tuesday morning.

Maurizio Dellantonio, national president of the Alpine Rescue Service, said teams had found body parts, hiking equipment and clothing on the surface of the debris, evidence of the avalanche's powerful impact on the hikers.

"We have recovered so many fragments over the last two days. They are very painful for those who pick them up and then for those who have to analyze them," he said. "Personally I can only think that what we found on the surface will be the same that we will find underneath, when the ice will melt or by digging, if there is a chance."

Officials closed all access routes and chair lifts to the glacier for hikers, fearing continued instability and the potential that more chunks of ice might detach.