Dozens of bodies pulled from rubble
Rescue crews using bulldozers and their bare hands raced to dig out survivors from a strong earthquake that reduced three central Italian towns to rubble Wednesday.
The death toll stood at 120, but the number of dead and missing was uncertain given the huge number of vacationers in the area for summer’s final days.
Residents wakened before dawn by the temblor emerged from their crumbled homes to find what they described as apocalyptic scenes ‘‘like Dante’s Inferno,’’ with entire blocks of buildings turned into piles of sand and rock, thick dust choking the air and a putrid smell of gas.
‘‘The town isn’t here anymore,’’ said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of the hardest-hit town, Amatrice. ‘‘I believe the toll will rise.’’
The magnitude 6 quake struck at 3:36am and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents woke to a long swaying followed by aftershocks. The quake shook the Lazio region and Umbria and Le Marche on the Adriatic coast, a highly seismic area that has witnessed major quakes in the past.
Dozens of people were pulled out alive by rescue teams and volunteers that poured in from around Italy.
‘‘She’s alive!’’ two women cheered as they ran up the street in Pescara del Tronto, one of the three hardest hit hamlets, after an 8-year-old girl was pulled from the rubble after nightfall. And there were wails when bodies emerged.
‘‘Unfortunately, 90 per cent we pull out are dead, but some make it, that’s why we are here,’’ said Christian Bianchetti, a volunteer from Rieti who was working in devastated Amatrice where floodlights were set up so the rescue could continue through the night.
Premier Matteo Renzi visited the zone Wednesday, greeted rescue teams and survivors, and said the toll stood at 120 dead and was likely to rise. At least 368 others were injured. He promised the quake-prone area that ‘‘No family, no city, no hamlet will be left behind.’’
Worst affected were the tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, some 100km northeast of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto, some 25km further east. Italy’s civil protection agency set up tent cities around each hamlet to accommodate the thousands of homeless.
Italy’s health minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, visiting the devastated area, said many of the victims were children: The quake zone is a popular spot for Romans with second homes, and the population swells in August when most Italians take their summer holiday before school resumes.
The medieval centre of Amatrice was devastated, with the hardest-hit half of the city cut off by rescue crews digging by hand to get to trapped residents.
The birthplace of the famed spaghetti all’amatriciana bacon and tomato sauce, the city was full for this weekend’s planned festival honouring its native dish. Some 70 guests filled its top Hotel Roma, famed for its amatriciana, and a rescue worker said at least five bodies were pulled from the hotel’s rubble. The fate of the dozens of other guests wasn’t immediately known.
The devastation harked back to the 2009 quake that killed more than 300 people in and around L’Aquila, about 90km south of the latest quake.
Pope Francis skipped his traditional catechism for his general audience and instead invited the thousands of pilgrims in St Peter’s Square to recite the rosary with him. He sent a six-man squad from the Vatican’s fire department to help.