Mushroom Picking Kills 18 in Italy

An early and prolific mushroom harvest in Italy has so far resulted in 18 deaths in 10 days. People have been flocking to Alpine valleys to collect mushrooms, but many of the fungi-cravers have lacked the proper footwear to navigate the woods and forests or have become trapped in adverse weather conditions, ultimately falling into rocky crevasses and gorges. "Lots of people go to areas which are easy to access, but there are always a few people who want to search out remote bits of woodland which no one else knows," said Marco Biasoni, a mountain rescuer from Bolzano, in the north of the country. Seven people have died in the Lombardy region, while Piedmont, on the border with France, and Trentino-Alto Adige, adjacent to Austria, have also reported deaths. Most recently, a 65-year-old woman fell 40 meters down a steep rocky slope to her death in a forest near the Swiss border.