Quake in Italy kills at least 159
Three towns frequented by tourists reduced to rubble.
Rescue crews AMATRICE, ITALY — using bulldozers and their bare hands raced to dig out survivors from a strong earthquake that reduced three central Italian towns to rubble Wednesday.
The death toll stood at 159, but the number of dead and missing was uncertain given the thousands of vacationers in the area for summer’s final days.
Residents wakened before dawn by the temblor emerged from their crumbled homes to find what they described as apocalyptic scenes, with entire blocks of buildings turned into piles of sand and rock, thick dust choking the air and a putrid smell of gas.
“The town isn’t here anymore,” said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of the hardest-hit town, Amatrice. “I believe the toll will rise.”
The magnitude 6.2 quake struck at 3:36 a.m. and was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents woke to a long swaying followed by aftershocks. The quake shook the Lazio region and Umbria and Le Marche on the Adriatic coast, a highly seismic area that has experienced major quakes in the past.
Dozens of people were pulled from the rubble by rescue teams and volunteers who poured in from around Italy.
“She’s alive!” two women cheered as they ran up the street in Pescara del Tronto, one of the three hardest hit hamlets, after a 10-year-old girl was rescued 17 hours after the quake struck.
There were also wails when bodies emerged.
“Unfortunately, 90 percent we pull out are dead, but some make it; that’s why we are here,” said Christian Bianchetti, a volunteer from Rieti who was working in devastated Amatrice, where flood lights were set up so the rescue could continue through the night.
Premier Matteo Renzi visited the zone Wednesday, encouraging rescue teams and survivors and pledging that “No family, no city, no hamlet will be left behind.” Italy’s civil protection agency reported the death toll had risen to 159 by late Wednesday; at least 368 others were injured.
Worst affected were the tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, some 60 miles northeast of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto further east. Italy’s civil protection agency set up tent cities around each hamlet to accommodate the thousands of homeless.
Italy’s health minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, visiting the devastated area, said many of the victims were children: The quake zone is a popular spot for Romans with second homes, and the population swells in August when most Italians take their summer holiday before school resumes.
The medieval center of Amatrice was devastated. The birthplace of the famed spaghetti all’amatriciana, the city was full for this weekend’s planned festival honoring its native dish. Some 70 guests filled its top Hotel Roma, where five bodies were pulled from the rubble before the operation was suspended when conditions became too dangerous late Wednesday.
Among those killed was an 11-year-old boy who had initially shown signs of life. The fate of the dozens of other guests wasn’t immediately known.
Amatrice is made up of 69 hamlets that teams from around Italy were working to reach with sniffer dogs, earth movers and other heavy equipment.
In the city center, rocks and metal tumbled onto the streets and dazed residents huddled in piazzas as more than 200 aftershocks jolted the region throughout the day, some as strong as magnitude 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.”
Another woman, sitting in front of her destroyed home with a blanket over her shoulders, said she didn’t know what had become of her loved ones.
“It was one of the most beautiful towns of Italy and now there’s nothing left,” she said, too distraught to give her name.
As the August sun gave way to night’s chill, residents, civil protection workers and even priests dug with shovels, bulldozers and their bare hands to reach survivors.
A steady column of dump trucks hauled off tons of twisted metal, rock and concrete, along with a handful of ambulances bringing the injured to Rome hospitals.
“We need chain saws, shears to cut iron bars and jacks to remove beams. Everything, we need everything,” said civil protection worker Andrea Gentili.
Italy’s national blood drive association appealed for donations to Rieti’s hospital.
Despite a massive rescue and relief effort — with army, Alpine crews, firefighters, Red Cross crews and volunteers — it wasn’t enough. A few miles north of Amatrice, in Illica, residents complained that rescue workers were slow to arrive and that loved ones were trapped.
“We are waiting for the military,” said resident Alessandra Cappellanti. “There is a base in Ascoli, one in Rieti, and in L’Aquila. And we have not seen a single soldier. We pay! It’s disgusting!”
Agostino Severo, a Roman visiting Illica, said workers eventually arrived. “We came out to the piazza, and it looked like ‘Dante’s Inferno,’ ” he said. “People crying for help, help.”
The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake’s magnitude was 6.2, while the Italian geological service put it at 6 and the European Mediterranean Seismological Center at 6.1. The quake had a shallow depth, meaning it packed a bigger punch, and the masonry construction of many of the region’s venerable buildings made them even more susceptible. “The Apennine mountains in central Italy have the highest seismic hazard in Western Europe and earthquakes of this magnitude are common,” noted Richard Walters, a lecturer in earth sciences at Durham University in Britain.