An Italian Alpine resort on Sunday lifted declared alert last week over fears that a chunk of a glacier on the Mont Blanc mountain range might crash down on them.
Around 15 people who were relocated due to the alert can now return to their homes in Courmayeur and traffic in the Cap Ferret valley is permitted again, stated a statement from town officials.
Climate change has been increasingly melting the world’s glaciers, creating a new danger for the town of Courmayeur, a resort community in Italy’s Aosta Valley region, near the French border.
The town was put on high alert on Wednesday as a block of ice estimated at about 500,000 cubic meters — the size of the Milan cathedral, one official stated — from the Planpincieux glacier risked falling and threatening homes.
But on Sunday, town officials announced that all security measures had been lifted.
locals were dismissive of the closing and declared it further hit a tourism season already affected by the coronavirus measures.
In September and October last year, the Planpincieux glacier also approached to partial collapse, after which extra surveillance measures were put in place.
A study by Swiss scientists on last year found that Alpine glaciers could shrink between 65 and 90 percent this century, depending on how effectively the world can curb greenhouse gas emissions.
