Gulf News

Survivors pulled from Italy avalanche hotel

A group of six are found in an air pocket and five more people make contact with rescuers

- PENNE, ITALY

Italian rescuers yesterday began pulling survivors from the ruins of a mountain hotel, two days after it was buried under a devastatin­g avalanche.

Amidst relief that anyone at all had survived, there was confusion over the exact numbers located and extracted amid conflictin­g updates from different branches of the emergency services.

But there were hopes that a total of 11 people would have been removed from the rubble by nightfall, leaving at least another 14 to account for.

A group of six people were found in an air pocket yesterday morning but only two of them, a mother and her young son, had been extracted by mid-afternoon, contrary to earlier briefings from rescuers.

Roberto Carminucci, one of the coordinato­rs of the rescue operation, said contact had been made with another group of five survivors.

About 30 people were trapped inside the luxury Hotel Rigopiano in the Gran Sasso mountain range when the avalanche hit Wednesday after days of winter storms that dumped up to 3 metres of snow in some places.

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