AOSTA, September 28 (WNM) - Authorities in Italy are taking action to prevent harm to human life as they warn the Italian side of the Mont Blanc glacier could collapse soon.
According to the Safe Mountain Foundation, authorities in Italy are closing roads and ordering people living near the glacier to evacuate. The Safe Mountain Foundation wrote in an analysis published this week that 250,000 cubic meters of ice could break away from the glacier.
The mayor of Aosta said: "Following the reports received from the Regional Structures and from the Fondazione Montagna Sicura - highlights the Mayor of Courmayeur, Stefano Miserocchi - there was a significant increase in the sliding speed of the Planpincieux glacier in the last period. Based on the scenarios presented for reasons of safety and public safety, we had to adopt these measures because the scenario of a possible fall in the portion of the glacier concerns the man-made valley floor, in particular the municipal access road to the Planpincieux area (which does not fall in the scenarios). Public safety is a priority for the municipal administration. These phenomena once again testify that the mountain is in a phase of strong change due to climatic factors, therefore it is particularly vulnerable. In this case it is a temperate glacier particularly sensitive to high temperatures. The monitoring work is constant, thanks to the collaboration with the regional Structures and with the Fondazione Montagna Sicura, and is aimed at guaranteeing the adoption of safety measures for public safety and for evaluating the next actions and possible related scenarios ".
The analysis of movement data related to other observations of the Planpincieux glacial mass showed, from what reported by the Regional Structures and by the Fondazione Montagna Sicura, a potential danger of collapse, without however being able to predict from a temporal point of view the exact moment, of a volume estimated in maximum 250,000 m3.
It should be emphasized that in this situation there is no real monitoring system available to allow the activation of pre-alarms or alarms when thresholds are exceeded.
The glacier has been the subject of experimental studies since 2013 by the Safe Mountain Foundation in collaboration with the Geohazard Monitoring Group of the CNR-IRPI of Turin, a national competence center, in order to study the ice collapses that occur frequently from the glacial front . It should be noted that the Planpincieux Glacier photographic monitoring system is NOT a system designed to be an alert system, but a prototype system designed with the Valle d'Aosta Autonomous Region and the IRPI CNR to be a system of continuous study of the dynamics glacial. At present there are no models or empirical methods that can allow quantitative prediction in the case of glaciers with sliding dynamics as in the case of Planpincieux.
From the last surveys an increase in speed of the entire lower portion of the glacier appeared evident that at the end of August and September recorded an average peak speed between 50 and 60 cm per day. The volumetric estimate made by the Montagna Sicura technicians relative to the portion of the glacier isolated from the opening of a crevasse immediately upstream of the moving area is equal to about 250,000 m3 of ice.