ITALY QUAKE: SELFLESS ACTS AND SURVIVORS
As the death toll in the Italian earthquake reached 250 Thursday — with more than 270 injured — rescuers intensified their efforts in the search for survivors in the mountainous region northeast of Rome. Their task was complicated by powerful aftershocks that threatened to bring down weakened buildings. The quake also hit at the height of the tourist season. Araminta Wordsworth of the National Post reports.
‘COME ON, GIULIA’
About 17 hours after the quake struck, firefighters pulled a 10-year-old girl alive from a crumbled home. Video images from the town of Pescara del Tronto showed rescuers hearing the girl and finding her moving foot before staging a frantic dig. “You can hear something under here. Quiet, quiet,” one rescue worker said, before soon urging her on, “Come on, Giulia, come on, Giulia.” Applause broke out as they pulled her from under a beam and piles of rocks. “Unfortunately, 90 per cent we pull out are dead, but some make it, that’s why we are here,” said volunteer Christian Bianchetti.
ONE CANADIAN KILLED
One Canadian was killed and another was injured, but their identities were not released by the Canadian government for privacy reason. “We share in the grief of the lives cut short by this terrible event,” Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion said in a statement. Global Affairs Canada said 72 Canadians were registered as being in the affected area when the earthquake struck. However, the numbers are likely low as many Canadians never register with the department while travelling abroad. Officials did not say whether any Canadians are missing.
NO REASON TO STAY
Lucia Di Gianvito, a house cleaner who lost her home in the quake, said she had no word from the elderly woman who employed her. “She is probably dead,” said Di Gianvito, 57. “Everything is going to be over now — no jobs, no shops left. It’s over.” A woman nearby chimed in, saying the town would rebuild. But Di Gianvito laughed. “The situation wasn’t good even before,” she said, adding only one of her two adult sons had managed to find work. “There were no jobs. The young people are leaving. Should we leave, too? Maybe. But where will we go? There is no hope.”
SAVED BY GOD’S MESSENGER
Sister Mariana Lleshi attributes her escape to the grace of God. “I remember hearing something, a loud noise, and then hiding under my bed,” said nun, 35, from Albania. “I was screaming, and I got out and started running when the ceiling started coming down.” A young man who was staying overnight at the convent found her in the chaos and guided her to safety. “All I could see was destruction around me,” she said. “I had lost all hope to get out of this alive, but God sent me his messenger.” Three other nuns and four elderly women in another part of the building were not so lucky.
TERROR OF THE ‘EVIL MURMUR’
Ewa Szwaja says she will never forget the “evil murmur of moving walls.” The Polish woman told a TV station in her homeland she and her husband were woken by tremors and a “terrible noise.” She grabbed her four-year-old son, wrapped him for warmth, and the family escaped through the balcony. “We knew it was an earthquake,” she said. “I will remember till the end of my life this noise, the evil murmur of moving walls.” Their neighbours Sergio and Assunta and their 13-yearold grandson didn’t survive: “The house in front had collapsed and we stepped from the balcony onto the rubble. The bedroom of our neighbours did not exist anymore.”
GOING HOME — BRIEFLY
Firefighters are escorting survivors back to their houses to get some belongings. Rescue crews say many buildings, even if they remain standing, are uninhabitable. But since it looks like residents will be homeless for some time, firefighters are letting them get what they need. Among them was Nello Caffini, who was carrying the belongings of his sister-in-law, Maria Pia, on his head in Pescara del Tronto. He said they slept in the car Wednesday night even though he has a home in nearby Ascoli. “If she feels calmer, we will go back to Ascoli,” he said of Pia.
A LAST SELFLESS ACT
Giulia Rinaldi was sleeping peacefully in her bedroom with her young sister Giorgia in the hillside village of Pescara del Tronto when their world came crashing down. As the walls started to crumble in the early hours of Wednesday, neither Giulia, 8, nor her sister, 4, had time to rush out of the house. With no adult to help them, Giulia threw herself on top of her sister, wrapping her in her arms. They remained trapped like that for 16 hours. The selfless act allowed Giorgia to escape unscathed. But it would be the last thing that Giulia ever did.