Scores dead as quake destroys Italian towns
AMATRICE (AP) — A strong earthquake struck central Italy early yesterday, collapsing homes on top of residents as they slept. At least 37 people were reported dead and 157 are still missing in two hard-hit towns where rescue crews raced to dig out survivors from the rubble.
“The town isn’t here anymore,’’ Amatrice Mayor Sergio Pirozzi said.
The magnitude 6.2 quake struck at 3: 36 a.m. and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including the capital Rome where residents felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks.
The hardest-hit towns were Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, some 100 kilometers northeast of Rome, though the quake was felt beyond the Lazio region into Umbria and Le Marche on the Adriatic coast.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis, saddened by the earthquake, yesterday canceled a speech he was to have given at his general audience and instead prayed with the crowd for victims and survivors.
“Hearing the mayor of Amatrice say that the town no longer exists and hearing that there are children among the victims, I am deeply saddened,” he told tens of thousands of people who had gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his general audience.
Francis said he would postpone his weekly address on religious teachings until next week and asked the crowd to pray with him for the victims of the quake.
The center of Amatrice was devastated, with entire palazzos razed to the ground. Rocks and metal tumbled onto the streets and dazed residents huddled in piazzas as dozens of aftershocks continued into the early morning hours, some as strong as 5.1.
“The whole ceiling fell but did not hit me,’’ marveled resident Maria Gianni. “I just managed to put a pillow on my head and I wasn’t hit luckily, just slightly injured my leg.’’
As daylight dawned, residents, civil protection workers and even priests began digging out with shovels, bulldozers and their bare hands, trying to reach survivors. There was a sigh of relief as a woman was pulled out alive from one building, followed by a dog.
“We need chain saws, shears to cut iron bars and jacks to remove beams: everything, we need everything,’’ civil protection worker Andrea Gentili told The Associated Press.
The devastation harked back to the 2009 quake that killed more than 300 people in and around L’Aquila, which sent emergency teams yesterday to help with the rescue.
The US Geological Survey put the magnitude at 6.2 with the epicenter at Norcia, about 170 kilometers northeast of Rome, and with a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers.
“I don’t know what to say. We are living this immense tragedy,’’ said the Rev. Savino D’Amelio, an Amatrice parish priest. “We are only hoping that we all have the courage to move on.’’
The mayor of the quake-hit town of Accumoli, Stefano Petrucci, said at least six people had died there, including a family of four and two others. “There are deaths,’’ he told state-run RaiNews24.
In Amatrice, the ANSA news agency reported two bodies had been pulled from one building. The Rev. Fabio Gammarota told ANSA another three were killed in a separate collapse.