Hope fades after quake

– An increasingly forlorn search for victims of the earthquake that brought carnage to central Italy entered a third day yesterday, as a day of mourning was declared for victims of a disaster that has claimed at least 267 lives.

Flags will fly at half-mast across the country today, to coincide with the first funerals. Releasing the new confirmed death toll, Immacolata Postiglione, head of the Civil Protection agency’s emergency unit, indicated there had been no survivors found overnight in any of the remote mountain villages devastated by Wednesday’s powerful pre-dawn quake.

At least 367 people have been hospitalised with injuries but no one has been pulled alive from the piles of collapsed masonry since Wednesday evening.

“There is no one under the rubble here but in Amatrice there is still hope that survivors could be found today,” survivor Fabrizio Micozzi said.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has declared a state of emergency for the regions affected by the quake, which occurred in an area that straddles Umbria, Lazio and Marche. Renzi also released an initial tranche of $56 million (R786 million) in emergency aid.

The first funerals will be held in the city of Ascoli-Piceno for 40 of the victims who died in the villages of Arquata del Tronto and Pescara del Tronto in the mountains of the Marche region.

President Sergio Mattarella will attend.

A total of 46 people died in the two villages. The youngest was born in 2012, the oldest in 1924, according to a list published by the local prefecture. About 2 100 people who spent the night in hastily-erected tented villages were shaken by a 4.8 magnitude aftershock just after 6am. The tremor underlined the perilous nature of a rescue effort involving more than 4 000 emergency service staff and volunteers. – AFP