Three brothers rescued as tourists flee over aftershock fears

ROME — Rescuers on the Italian holiday island of Ischia pulled the last trapped child from rubble on Tuesday after a magnitude-4.0 earthquake toppled buildings and left two people dead.

Firefighters dug with their bare hands to reach Ciro, 11, the last of three brothers buried in debris when the quake struck.

“There was silence for a while, they were tired. Then they began speaking again and we drew comfort from that,” said Luca Cari, a firefighter spokesman.

A woman was killed in Casamicciola, in the north of the island, by debris that fell from a church, while the body of another was spotted in the rubble of a collapsed house, local media reported.

Firefighters broke into applause as a dusty Mattias, 7, was pulled free from under the bed where he had taken refuge. Ciro was the last to emerge, rescued after 16 hours in the dark and loaded into a waiting ambulance.

The boys’ father, whose hands were bandaged after spending the night digging through the rubble alongside the firefighters, could be seen tearfully hugging relatives as his eldest son was saved.

Emergency workers had previously recovered the boys’ 7-month-old brother, Pasquale, crying but alive, after hours of effort overnight. Their pregnant mother had sounded the alarm.

The quake hit the northwest of the island at 8:57 pm on Monday, at a depth of just 5 kilometers.

Italian authorities first put the quake at magnitude-3.6, but later revised it upward to 4.0 — in seismic terms, a modest event.

The main earthquake was followed by 14 smaller aftershocks. Several buildings collapsed while others had large, ominous cracks.

Thirty-nine people injured, one seriously.

Civil Protection Department were head Angelo Borrelli said about 2,600 people could not re-enter their homes, pending checks.

“Italy is united with Ischia in sorrow for, and solidarity with, the victims. We stand side-by-side with those taking part in the rescues,” Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Twitter.

Many tourists rushed to catch special overnight ferries back to the mainland.

The quake struck just days ahead of the first anniversary of the magnitude-6.0 quake that killed nearly 300 people in and around Amatrice in central Italy.

Francesco Peduto, head of Italy’s National Geologists Association, slammed shoddy construction and a lack of earthquake prevention measures, saying a magnitude-4.0 quake should not have brought down buildings.

“It’s frankly extraordinary that people continue to die for earthquakes of this size,” he said.

The quake response has benefited from the presence of emergency responders who were on the island to fight forest fires that have plagued Italy this summer, local media said.

Ischia is often hit by earthquakes, with its worst dating back to July 1883, when an estimated 5.8-magnitude quake killed more than 2,000 people.

ANTONIO DILAURENZO / REUTERS An Italian police officer and a doctor carry a 7-month-old boy after an earthquake hit the island of Ischia off the coast of Naples, Italy. The boy’s two brothers were later also rescued.