Brothers pulled alive from quake rubble
CRYING but unharmed, a baby is pulled from the rubble early yesterday seven hours after an earthquake destroyed his family’s home.
Rescuers on the Italian island of Ischia had heard seven-month-old Pasquale Toscano’s cries in the debris. Over the next ten hours they managed to free his brothers Mattias, eight, who was uninjured and Ciro, 11, who suffered a broken bone in his foot. Ciro had managed to save Mattias by pushing him under a bed as the 4.0 magnitude quake shattered the holiday island near Capri in the Bay of Naples, killing two women.
Ciro alerted rescuers by banging a broom handle on the rubble. The boys’ father Alessandro and pregnant mother Alessia had escaped their home in Casamicciola soon after the tremor struck at 9pm on Monday.
Onlookers cheered as each of the boys was brought to safety to be hugged by his parents. Mr Toscano’s hands were bandaged after he had clawed at the rubble to help rescue his sons.
The quake hit at the height of the tourist season. An elderly woman died after she was hit by falling masonry at a church and another woman was killed when her home collapsed, while 39 people were injured and 2,600 left homeless. Many visitors took refuge in parks following the quake.
TV images showed many buildings had collapsed while others suffered severe structural damage. Cars were overturned.
The extent of the damage, for a relatively minor quake, raised questions about the quality of construction on the island.