Italian authorities have recently closed off roads and evacuated houses after experts warned that a large portion of a Mont Blanc glacier is in danger of collapse because of global warming.
Stefano Miserocchi, the mayor of Courmayeur town, noted that “public safety is a priority”. Experts from the Fondazione Montagna Sicura (Safe Mountains Foundation) in the Aosta Valley also said that up to 250,000 cubic meters of ice was in danger of sliding off the Planpincieux glacier on the Grandes Jorasses peak.
AFP
Experts have been closely monitoring the glacier since 2013 to detect the speed at which the ice is melting, and Miserocchi said that the rate had “significantly increased” recently. However, they're unable to predict when the ice would break away.
In 2017, about 50 cubic meters of ice fell from Planpincieux, while in September 2018 a mass of ice broke away from the Glacier de la Charpoua, on the south-east side of the Aiguille Verte, on Mont Blanc's French side.
AFP
Miserocchi’s order came into force and included the evacuation of homes and mountain refuges in the area. He explained it was a precautionary measure and there was no threat to residential areas or tourist establishments. The affected zones are in the area of Val Ferret.
Reuters
Rising temperatures are causing glaciers to melt, with environmental activists in Switzerland holding their second “mourning ceremony” on the evaporating Pizol glacier in the country’s Glarus Alps. The glacier has lost up to 90 percent of its volume since 2006. In August 2019, a similar event was held at a glacier in Iceland.
According to The Guardian, the summer heatwave across Europe is also said to have accelerated the melting speed.
A roadblock in Courmayeur, Aosta, Italy, Photograph: Flavio Lo Scalzo/Reuters
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