Italian Authorities Have Sent Search & Rescue Teams Into The Alps To Try And Find The 20 Confirmed Missing Mountaineers Buried Under The Snow And Ice

Six people are confirmed dead, nine have been injured, and 20 are still missing after an avalanche was triggered following the breaking of a glacier in the Italian Alps.

Video footage of the avalanche shows the mass of ice and snow barreling down the slopes of Marmolada, one of the tallest mountains in Italy.

Search & Rescue crews are using helicopters, drones, and booze hounds to try and find the missing climbers.

The spokeswoman for the Italian emergency services Michela Canova stated that: “An avalanche of snow, ice, and rock which in it's path hit the access road where there were several mountain climbers trekking up and down Marmolada.

Some of which were swept away by the mass of white, the current number of mountaineers who are missing stands at 20, but that number can continue to rise as we don't have a definitive amount of missing climbers.

It isn't known exactly what caused the glacier to break away, but we suspect that climate change had a hand in it”.

The Alps have been bombarded with 10c degree heat since May, which could've led to the Italian glacier breaking and causing the avalanche.

Consequentially, catastrophic glacier collapses have become common place.

The shattering ice in the Alps of Europe show how climate change is altering the borderlands of the world, altering it in ways we still don't fully comprehend yet.