Italy still searching for survivors amid aftershocks
work would shift from saving lives to recovering bodies, noting that one person was pulled alive from the rubble 72 hours after the 2009 quake in the nearby town of L’Aquila.
“We will work relentlessly until the last person is found, and make sure no one is trapped,” said Lorenzo Botti, a rescue team spokesman.
Worst affected by the quake were the tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli near Rieti, 60 miles northeast of Rome, and Pescara del Tronto, 15 miles farther to the east.
Many were left homeless by the scale of the destruction, their homes and apartments declared uninhabitable. Some survivors, escorted by firefighters, were allowed to go back inside homes briefly Thursday to get essential necessities for what will surely be an extended absence.
Charitable assistance began pouring into the earthquake zone in traffic-clogging droves Thursday. Church groups from a variety of Christian denominations, along with farmers offering donated peaches, pumpkins and plums, sent vans along the one-way road into Amatrice that was already packed with emergency vehicles and trucks carrying sniffer dogs.
Renzi authorized a preliminary 50 million euros in emergency funding and the government canceled taxes for residents, pro-forma measures that are just the start of what will be a long and costly rebuilding campaign. He announced a new initiative, “Italian Homes,” to answer years of criticism over shoddy construction across the country, which has the highest seismic hazard in Western Europe.
But he also said that it was “absurd” to think that Italy could build completely quake-proof buildings.
“It’s illusory to think you can control everything,” he told a news conference. “It’s difficult to imagine it could have been avoided simply using different building technology. We’re talking about medieval-era towns.”