The situation of the Planpincieux glacier, a large block of which threatens to collapse on an inhabited area on the Italian side of the Mont-Blanc massif, was "slightly improving" this Saturday morning, said the mayor of Courmayeur, in this region. from northwestern Italy, bordering the French Alps.
"We are in a phase of slight improvement, the situation is a little better", assured Stefano Miserocchi. “However, we are not yet back to the pre-closure situation. It's a little positive, but it's not a return to normalcy ”. "The emergency measures remain the same: evacuation of residents, and closure of the road to Val-Ferret," said the councilor.
The "size of Milan Cathedral"
Like a huge serac, an estimated volume of ice of 500,000 cubic meters - the "size of Milan Cathedral" - threatens to collapse, according to local authorities, who ordered the evacuation for 72 hours on Wednesday evening. a "red zone" below.
In the Val d'Aosta, the small valley of Val Ferret is close to the famous resort of Courmayeur and the entrance to the Mont-Blanc tunnel, a vital axis between France and Italy. The area concerned is nevertheless located at least four kilometers from the entrance to the tunnel, and even more from Courmayeur, where the situation is perfectly normal.
In total, only 75 people were evacuated, around 20 residents and the rest of vacationers, with just a handful of homes affected. The evacuation was "urgent and imperative", justified the mayor of Courmayeur, highlighting the rise in temperatures, after a cold snap at the end of July. “The circulation of the water below the glacier has resumed, we have a recovery of the water under the glacier, which flows. It was this point that worried us a lot, ”he explained.
Reviews
According to scientists in the region, the water trapped under the rock threatened to act like a bubble, lifting the mass of ice and risking the fall of its most fragile part. A large fault was indeed visible on the lower part of the Planpincieux, from which two waterfalls flowed towards the valley, AFP noted during a helicopter flight over the majestic glacier.
In Courmayeur, as in the small neighboring locality of La Palud, leading to the valley of Val Ferret, the evacuation decided "urgently" surprised, arousing criticism from residents and tourism professionals, worried about the impact on their activity. "The situation evolved very quickly, with this big fracture on the glacier", justified the mayor, rejecting any alarmism. “I was called to Wednesday evening at 7:30 pm, and after I had to activate the civil protection plan, we did not have much time to react. It was really a very rapid development ”, he added,“ this is why we had to decide on these emergency measures without delay ”.
In September and October 2019, this glacier had already threatened to partially collapse, over a portion of nearly 250,000 cubic meters. Surveillance measures have since been put in place. A year earlier, an elderly couple had also been killed in Val Ferret near a stream by a mudslide triggered by a thunderstorm, a danger - locally nicknamed "water bomb" - much more As important as landslides or ice falls, according to residents of Val Ferret, who put the risk of an accident in Planpincieux into perspective: "it's normal for a glacier to move".
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