A Reverse Dynamical Investigation of the Catastrophic Wood-Snow Avalanche of 18 January 2017 at Rigopiano, Gran Sasso Na
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ARTICLE
A Reverse Dynamical Investigation of the Catastrophic WoodSnow Avalanche of 18 January 2017 at Rigopiano, Gran Sasso National Park, Italy Barbara Frigo1 • Perry Bartelt2 • Bernardino Chiaia1 • Igor Chiambretti3 Margherita Maggioni4,5
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Accepted: 2 June 2020 The Author(s) 2020
Abstract On 18 January 2017 a catastrophic avalanche destroyed the Rigopiano Gran Sasso Resort & Wellness (Rigopiano Hotel) in the Gran Sasso National Park in Italy, with 40 people trapped and a death toll of 29. This article describes the location of the disaster and the general meteorological scenario, with field investigations to provide insight on the avalanche dynamics and its interaction with the hotel buildings. The data gathered in situ suggest that the avalanche was a fluidized dry snow avalanche, which entrained a sligthtly warmer snow cover along the path and reached extremely long runout distances with braking effect from mountain forests. The avalanche that reached the Rigopiano area was a ‘‘wood-snow’’ avalanche—a mixture of snow and uprooted and crushed trees, rocks, and other debris. There were no direct eyewitnesses at the event, and a quick post-event survey used a numerical model to analyze the dynamics of the event to estimate the pressure, velocity, and direction of the natural flow and the causes for the destruction of the hotel. & Barbara Frigo [email protected] 1
Department of Structural, Building and Geotechnical Engineering - DISEG, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy
2
WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, 7260 Davos Dorf, Switzerland
3
Associazione Interregionale di Coordinamento e documentazione per i problemi inerenti alla Neve e alle Valanghe – AINEVA, 38122 Trento, Italy
4
Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Universita` di Torino, Forestali e Alimentari – DISAFA, 10095 Grugliasco, TO, Italy
5
Centro Interdipartimentale sui Rischi Naturali in Ambiente Montano e Collinare – NatRisk, 10095 Grugliasco, TO, Italy
Considering the magnitude and the damage caused by the event, the avalanche was at a high to very high intensity scale. Keywords Avalanche flow velocity Avalanche impact pressure Forensic field investigation Italy Rigopiano disaster Wood-snow avalanche
1 Introduction The snow emergencies that occurred in Central and South Italy in mid-January 2017 are well known to the experts. The most critical situations occurred in the Marche, Abruzzo, and Molise regions where the recorded snow accumulations were extreme: starting from the altitude of 800–900 m above sea level (asl), the snowpack easily exceeded 300–350 cm. Dramatic emergencies occurred: difficulties in road clearing, absence of electricity for days (more than 100,000 users were left without electricity for almost a week), isolated houses and villages due to the thick snowpack, and so on. The social and economic costs of the snow event in the central Apennines were very high, even without considering the Rigopiano tragedy. On 18 January 2017, seismic events occu
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