30 August,2010 11:43 AM IST | | Agencies
As many as 18 people died while picking mushrooms in Italy in little more than a week. The deaths took place after victims fell into crevasses and deep gorges.
A rich mushroom harvest in the Alpine valleys of northern Italy had led to people making a beeline for the woods and forests to look for succulent funghi.
Many, who were unfit and ill-equipped, ventured into remote areas without proper equipment.
Daily Telegraph Monday reported that those who died either fell into rocky crevasses and gorges or met with similar physical mishaps.
Marco Biasoni, a mountain rescuer, told Corriere della Sera: "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."
Collecting wild mushrooms is a popular pastime in Italy.
Seven of the deaths were reported from the Lombardy region while other people were killed in Piedmont, on the border with France, and Trentino-Alto Adige, abutting Austria.
In the latest case, a woman died after she fell 40 metres down a steep rocky slope in a forest near the town of Sondrio.
