Tragedy strikes Dolomites as two dead bodies foundThe mountain rescue service of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region bordering Austria announced on Thursday that two Austrian mountaineers had died while attempting to summit a 2,500-meter (8,200-foot) peak in Italy’s Julian Alps. The two men had been missing since Wednesday and were both Alpine rescuers from the southern Austrian city of Villach, close to the Slovenian and Austrian borders. The rescue service posted on Facebook that family members waiting for their return had attempted to contact the men by phone but had received no response.
They were mounting the “Cima di Riofreddo,” whose pinnacle culminates at more than 2,500 meters, when they fell either due of a miscalculation or a likely rockslide.
The rescuers stated that when they were discovered on Thursday morning at an altitude of about 2,000 meters, their bodies were still partially fixed to the mountainside and dangling from their climbing ropes. Due to safety concerns, it was first impossible to contact the climbers. However, early on Thursday morning, a helicopter carrying rescuers was able to locate the two mountaineers, and their bodies were found, according to the rescue agency.
The climbers’ deaths comes after numerous losses in the region in recent months. In June, a professional skier and his girlfriend plunged more than 2,000 feet to their deaths while mountain climbing in the Italian Alps. According to Reuters, an avalanche in the Alps near the Italian-Swiss border killed two hikers from Italy in January. At least nine hikers were killed in 2022 when a sizable portion of the Alpine glacier broke free and tumbled down a mountainside in Italy.