Two hiking trips ended in tragedy, hundreds of kilometres apart, with bad weather and lightning as a possible common thread. In recent hours two people have lost their lives on Etna and in the mountains of South Tyrol.
In Sicily, a thirty-year-old hiker of American origin died after being struck by lightning on Sunday evening while on Etna. According to initial reconstructions, the man had climbed into a restricted area of the volcano when a storm broke out.
The alarm was raised in the evening. Firefighters reached him around 8pm, finding him already in extremely serious condition. He was rushed to Cannizzaro Hospital in Catania, where he arrived without vital signs.
Another tragedy unfolded in the mountains of South Tyrol, on Piz Starlex, a peak of 3,075 metres above Taufers in Val Monastero (Münstertal). A local hiker, who had not been heard from since Sunday, was found dead during the night.
His last phone contact had been at 1pm, when he was at the summit. When he failed to return, search operations began shortly after 10pm. At 11.44pm, rescue teams, using a drone, located the body near trail number 4, at around 2,600 metres of altitude, in a particularly rugged area.
In this case too, according to an initial hypothesis, the hiker may have been struck by lightning during the descent. The body was recovered and brought down to the valley. Around 40 rescuers took part in the operation, including Alpine Rescue teams, the Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza) and volunteer firefighters.
