KATHMANDU – In the early hours of this morning, Italian mountaineering sources announced, as reported by the Italian news agency AGI (here), that the Italian “AviaMEA-Evk2CNR” rescue team took off from the Kathmandu heliport to reach the Yalung Ri area. Their goal was to attempt to rescue two climbers: Marco Di Marcello, 37-year-old Italian-Canadian biologist and mountain guide of Abruzzo origin and resident in Calgary, Alberta, and Markus Kirchler, a 29-year-old South Tyrolean from San Genesio, a former track and field talent who lives in Munich, Germany. 

The Italian rescue team is composed of Manuel Munari, head of “AviaMEA”, pilot instructor, who is leading the operation in conjunction with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Consulate in Kathmandu, and Michele Cucchi, who arrived from the “EVK2CNR” Pyramid Laboratory on Everest.

“There’s no one left on the glacier; we’ve also brought all the Nepalese rescuers back to the lodge. We’ve searched, marked the locations, and started digging. We’ll conduct a new search with surveyors, even though there’s up to ten meters of snow in some places. If we find any reliable locations, we’ll bring ten Sherpas onto the glacier to dig in the snow…” Manuel Munari told AGI via satellite from the village at the foot of Yalung Ri, a mountain located in the remote Rolwaling Valley, in the Dolakha district, in the Mount Everest area.

Munari and Cucchi, under the coordination of the longtime mission leader Agostino Da Polenza, are engaged in the difficult search for the mountaineers missing on Yalung Ri following the avalanche that struck Monday morning.

In addition to Di Marcello and Kirchler, German Jakob Schreiber and Nepalese Mere Karki and Padam Tamang are still missing, on separate expeditions. On Monday, the body of Paolo Cocco, 41, a photographer and former deputy mayor of Fara San Martino (Chieti, in Italy), who had been working as a graphic designer in the Innsbruck area of ​​Austria for several years, was recovered.

Crampons and pieces of clothing were found during the helicopter overflight. Munari added: “If there are no results tomorrow (Friday, ed.), we will mark the area and then when the snow clears we will find something. The intention is to conclude the mission at 2:00 PM (local time)” on Friday. Anyway, the team believe that it’s already been located the area where the missing could be found. Italian rescuers are taking part in a complex and difficult mission with the indispensable assistance of two helicopters, one from Simrik Air and the other from Eli Everest, which took off this morning from Kathmandu. 

It is increasingly difficult, as time passes, to hope that the missing will be found alive. But for the Italian-Canadian Di Marcello, the hope is kept alive by his GPS that in the last days continued to indicate movement. And the family believes it, as reported (here) by the Italian online newspaper “Il Trafiletto” of Teramo, the city (in the region of Abruzzo, Italy) where Marco was born.

Missing Italian-Canadian mountaineer, there is still hope. The family: “He’s alive, we believe it”

And as reported by the online newspaper Il Centro (here), there were also moments of prayer, with a well-attended vigil officiated on Wednesday evening by the parish priest Don Cristoforo of the parish of San Michele Arcangelo in Villa Torre, in Teramo, in the presence of relatives, friends, and fellow villagers “to keep the light of hope alive, all together”, they said.

Meanwhile, the Consulate General in Calcutta has received confirmation that the agencies have successfully communicated with the group of five hikers from the province of Como, Italy, who were in Nepal and had not been in contact for days. The hikers reported that they are well and will continue their program, returning to Kathmandu on November 8th. At least some good news, after all the negative news of the last week, starting from the deaths – last Friday – of other two Italian climbers,  Alessandro Caputo and Stefano Farronato, killed by an avalanche while climbing Mount Panbari on the Himalaya.

In the pic, Marco Di Marcello (form his Facebook page)