Italian specialist divers have recovered the body of a young man who was swept away by floodwaters with his two female companions nearly a month ago.
Divers from the Italian fire service found the body of Cristian Molnar, 25, wedged beneath a boulder in an eddy of the Natisone River in the northeastern Friuli Venezia Giulia region.
A drop in the level of the water enabled them to explore stretches of the river that were previously too dangerous.
Mr Molnar was on an outing in the countryside on May 31 with his friends Bianca Doros, 23, and Patrizia Cormos, 20.
They hopped across to a small gravel island in the middle of the river but torrential rain upstream resulted in the level rapidly rising.
Video of the three friends, all of them Romanian, clutching each other in a desperate attempt to withstand the swirling floodwaters went viral.
The strength of the river eventually proved too much for them and they were swept to their deaths.
The bodies of the two young women were found downstream just a few days after the tragedy.
“We have learnt of the sad news that, after many days, Cristian’s body has been found. This is a moment of great pain,” said Gaetano Laghi, a lawyer representing the young man’s family. Relatives “finally have a body to cry over”, he said.
Michele De Sabata, mayor of the local town Premariacco, said: “Cristian’s body was found underwater in an area that had been searched several times. But it was almost impossible to access those places with the river at the level that it was.”
He said fire service divers had risked their own lives to retrieve the body.
The young man’s body had been found “beneath an enormous boulder, inside a sort of tunnel that was covered with driftwood and vegetation”.
The mayor added: “This closes one of the saddest chapters in the history of our small community.”
An investigation has been launched to determine whether there were delays in the response of the emergency services and whether the three young friends could have been saved.
“Now that we have located his body, I want the truth and justice for Cristian,” said Petru Radu Molnar, his older brother.
Source Agencies
