USA TODAY International Edition
NATION DAZED AND DESPERATE
Hundreds of aftershocks jolt hard- hit regions of central Italy as death toll rises to 250
The first quake struck around 3: 30 a. m. Wednesday, collapsing homes and trapping people as they slept.
AMATRICE, The death ITALY toll in the Italian earthquake rose to at least 250 on Thursday as rescue crews hunted for dozens of people feared trapped under rubble in mountainous towns in central Italy.
Italy’s civil protection agency, revising downward an earlier death toll, said early Thursday that at least 250 people were killed and at least 365 others hospitalized.
Most of the dead — 184 — were in Amatrice, a picturesque medieval town of around 3,000 people.
The search efforts are focused around the isolated hilltop communities of Amatrice, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto where sniffer dogs, firefighters and paramedics were desperately searching for signs of life amid huge chunks of rock, cement and metal from collapsed homes and buildings.
Thousands of rescuers are using heavy lifting equipment to sift through the rubble but many are also using their bare hands.
In Pescara del Tronto, firefighters plucked an 8- year- old girl named Giorgia from the rubble where she had been trapped for 16 hours. Rescuers said they were able to locate the area of Giorgia’s room and started digging until they reached her. They also found the body of her sister, who was lying next to her, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
The search for life went on as aftershocks rattled the area a day after the magnitude- 6.2 quake struck at around 3: 30 a. m. local time Wednesday. As many as 470 aftershocks have been recorded since the initial jolt, ANSA reported.
“I was never so scared. Everything shook,” said Claudio
Matarell, a 20- year- old student who lives with his mother in Amatrice in an apartment that escaped serious damage. “I’ve felt tremors before but this was a whole new level. Like the difference between music in an iPod and going to a live show with 5 bands playing at once. Completely different.”
One rescue operation was mounted at the Hotel Roma in Amatrice, where an annual spaghetti festival was scheduled this weekend to honor the town’s signature bacon and tomato pasta sauce.
Amatrice’s mayor had initially said 70 guests were in the collapsed hotel, but rescue workers later cut the estimate in half after the owner said most guests had managed to escape.
Firefighters’ spokesman Luca Cari said one body had been pulled out of the hotel just before dawn after five others were extracted earlier but searches continued there and elsewhere.
In Pescara del Tronto, video footage showed rescuers cheering and clapping as a 10- year- old girl was pulled alive from the rubble after being trapped for 17 hours.
“They’ve told us for years we should make our houses anti- seismic,” said Gloria Nardo, 69, of Amatrice. “But how do you retrofit a brick house built in 1750? It’s almost all gone now.”
Meanwhile, a prosecutor in Rieti has opened an investigation into possible culpable negligence over the collapse of two recently restored structures — a school in Amatrice and a bell tower in Accumoli, RAI- TV reports.
Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi visited the quake- affected area Wednesday. He vowed to rebuild “and guarantee a reconstruction that will allow residents to live in these communities, to relaunch these beautiful towns that have a wonderful past that will never end.”
Italy’s civil protection agency said the first estimate for damage is about $ 11 billion.
Italy’s culture ministry has decreed that proceeds from public museums across Italy this Sunday will be dedicated to helping restore damaged buildings in the quake zone, the Associated Press reported. Several churches and other medieval- era buildings were damaged or destroyed in the quake.
In a statement Thursday, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini urged Italians to go out in force Sunday to visit museums and Italy’s numerous archaeological sites “in a concrete sign of solidarity” with quake victims.