Mayor Stefano Miserocchi of the city of Courmayeur (Italy) said that an estimated 250,000 m3Ice may have broken off the 4,800m Mont Blanc glacier. He decided to close two routes and evacuate climbing after experts warned that a section of the mountain's glacier was sliding down at a rate of 50-60cm a day and was accelerating, threatening the Ferret valley.
Mr. Miserocchi stressed that this was a consequence of climate change.
At the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York (USA), Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte reminded the international community to take urgent action against climate change. He said that the risk of part of the Mont Blanc iceberg collapsing was a "clear" warning. Previously, many scientific studies also warned that global warming threatened to melt the permafrost and cause the icebergs to gradually disappear.
Environmental activists in Switzerland held a funeral on Monday for the Pizol glacier in the Glarus Alps, which has lost 90% of its volume since 2006. A similar event was held in Iceland in August 2019.
The record heatwave in Europe last summer is also believed to have contributed to the rapid melting of icebergs.
