DOLOMITES IN TEARS: 3 body found dead in search for British hikers missing in italy’s dolomite mountains police identified …..
DOLOMITES IN TEARS: 3 body found dead in search for British hikers missing in italy’s dolomite mountains police identified …..
Rescue crews found the body of a British hiker buried in the snow of the Italian Alps and were continuing to search for his friend, who had also been missing since January 1, Italy’s rescue services said Wednesday.
Italy’s Alpine rescue service said it only received an alert about the men on January 6, five days after the men set out in the Adamello range near Trento, after they failed to make a scheduled flight home and relatives contacted authorities.
After the first two days of searches were hampered by snowfall, fog and avalanche warnings, rescue crews managed to get a helicopter in the air Wednesday and ground crews reached the pair’s last recorded location.
Guided by the hikers’ phone recordings, crews found the men’s backpacks and equipment, as well as the body of one of the hikers buried in the snow, the rescuers said in a statement.
British media quoted relatives and partners of the two men, Aziz Ziriat, 36, and Sam Harris, 35, as saying they were experienced hikers who had planned a New Year’s Day excursion, hiking from mountain hut to mountain hut.
“It wasn’t surprising that they had no signal as they like going off the grid,” said a university friend of Ziriat, Joe Stone.
A helicopter attempted a flyover on Tuesday, but fog and poor visibility forced it to return before reaching the affected valley and the search was suspended, the rescue crews said.
Additionally, ground crews of the fire rescue service were unable to work due to high risks of avalanches.
The Adamello range straddles Italy’s Lombardy and Trentino-Alto Adige regions and includes the highest peak, Mt. Adamello, at 3,539 meters (11,611 feet.)
A search and rescue operation is under way in the Dolomites in northern Italy for two British men who have gone missing on a hiking trip.
Aziz Ziriat, 36, and Samuel Harris, 35, from London, were last heard from on 1 January after sending messages home from the Trentino region. They did not check into their flight home on 6 January.
Alpine Rescue, Guardia di Finanza Rescue, Carabinieri and the local fire brigade are all involved in the search but due to recent snowfall teams say they are having difficulty reaching the area.
Rebecca Dimmock, Mr Ziriat’s girlfriend, described the pair as “experienced hikers”.
She told the BBC: “They wanted to do a New Year’s hike. They wanted to go from hut to hut throughout the Dolomites.
“They were planning on going off-grid, so that’s not unexpected at all.
“I think they wanted to have some nights where they were out in nature and in fresh air and sleeping in the wild. They have all the gear and they’ve done hikes before.”
But they also wanted to get into the huts and have fires and drink red wine because it was New Year’s, which they did do, because he did message me at one point and he was carrying a log up the mountain to one of the huts,” Ms Dimmock said.
She added: “I know they made it to the hut, and they were drinking red wine, but he said it was freezing.”
