Death toll increases in major landslide

Search teams recovered the bodies of seven people, including a 3-week-old infant and a pair of young siblings, buried in mud and debris that hurtled down a mountainside and through a densely populated port city on the resort island of Ischia, officials said Sunday.

The Naples prefect confirmed that five people remained missing and feared buried under the debris of an enormous landslide that struck Casamicciola before dawn on Saturday, collapsing buildings.

The other victims were identified as the infant boy's parents, a 5-year-old girl and her 11-year-old brother, a 31-year-old island resident and a Bulgarian tourist.

“Mud and water tend to fill every space,” Luca Cari, the spokesman for Italian firefighters, told RAI state TV. ”Our teams are searching with hope, even if it is very difficult.”

Bulldozers first focused on clearing roads to allow rescue vehicles to pass, while dive teams were brought in to check cars that had been pushed into the sea.

The Naples prefect, Claudio Palomba, said Sunday that 30 homes had been inundated and more than 200 people had been

displaced. Five people were injured.

The slide before was triggered by exceptional rainfall — nearly five inches of rain in just six hours, the heaviest rainfall in 20 years, according to officials. Experts said the disaster was exacerbated by building in areas of high risk on the mountainous island, which is also in an seismically active zone.

“There is territory that cannot be occupied,” geologist Riccardo Caniparoli told RAI. “There are norms and laws that were not respected.”

Vincenzo De Luca, president of the Campagna region where Ischia is located, said houses in areas at risk must be demolished, suggesting they had been built without necessary permits.