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Italy quake toll rises as rescuers struggle to free people from rubble 'This used to be my home': Italians in shock after devastating earthquake
(about 1 hour later)
The death toll from a powerful earthquake that struck a string of towns and villages across a mountainous swath of central Italy has risen to 73, with more people still unaccounted for. Amid the rubble of a town that seems almost to have toppled onto its hillside, it is, miraculously, still standing. But the clock on the 13th-century bell tower in Amatrice is stuck at 3.39 – three minutes after the earthquake struck.
The 6.2-magnitude quake struck at 3.36am when most people were still asleep, razing homes, buckling roads and burying residents under mounds of rubble in the hardest-hit towns of Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto. At least 120 people died and dozens more were injured, or feared still trapped in debris, after a powerful pre-dawn earthquake devastated a string of remote hilltop towns and villages across a swath of central Italy on Wednesday.
Residents and emergency services struggled to free victims from homes that collapsed into piles of masonry in a remote area straddling the regions of Umbria, Marche and Lazio. The quake was felt as far away as Rome, more than 93 miles (150km) away. The 6.2-magnitude quake struck at 3.36am when most were still asleep, razing homes, buckling roads and burying residents under mounds of masonry in the hardest-hit towns of Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto.
It was Italy’s most powerful earthquake since 2009, when more than 300 people died in and around the city of Aquila, just to the south of Wednesday’s quake. More than 12 hours after the initial tremor, bulldozers and earth movers were rumbling slowly up winding, deeply fissured roads, while temporary camps and kitchens were being set up to house and feed the several thousand made homeless.
“The situation is dramatic, there are many dead. Rescue efforts are under way and it is very, very difficult,” the mayor of Amatrice, Sergio Pirozzi, told local media. “Half the village has disappeared. The aim now is to save as many lives as possible.” Italy’s civil protection agency, which is coordinating the rescue operation, said the death toll from the quake, which was felt in Rome more than 93 miles (150km) away, was provisional and likely to rise.
The mayor of Accumoli, Stefano Petrucci, said as the day progressed that the situation was “even more dreadful than we feared, with buildings collapsed, people trapped under the rubble and no sound of life”. He said two or three hamlets had completely disintegrated and the death toll was expected to rise. Hundreds of rescue crews from around the country, including a six-man team of firefighters from the Vatican, scrambled to the area straddling the regions of Umbria, Marche and Lazio.
Italian television showed images of distraught residents and holidaymakers in the popular tourist region sifting through rubble with shovels and their bare hands as emergency services scrambled to move in earth-moving machinery and sniffer dogs. “The situation is dramatic, there are many dead. Rescue efforts are under way and it is very, very difficult,” the mayor of Amatrice, Sergio Pirozzi, told reporters. “Much of the village has disappeared. The aim now is to save as many lives as possible.”
Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, said the priority over the coming days was to rescue any survivors. Adding that he would be heading to the zone later in the day, Renzi said Italy showed its true face in times of trouble: “No family, no city, no hamlet will be left alone.” The mayor of Accumoli, Stefano Petrucci, was in tears, saying the situation was “even more dreadful than we feared, with buildings collapsed, people trapped under the rubble and no sound of life”.
Two or three nearby hamlets had completely disintegrated, he said, adding that the town’s 700-strong population swells to around 2,000 in the summer and he now feared for its future.
A regional council engineer, Orlando Sandro, said 80% of Amatrice’s old town centre had been destroyed, adding that the foundations of many of the buildings that had not collapsed were so badly weakened they would have to be pulled down.
Inside the town, almost every building was cracked and whole streets were filled with rubble. There was an overpowering smell of dust.
A team of a dozen orange-suited emergency workers were busy on a large mound of rubble next to a house sliced almost exactly in half by the tremor, so neatly that a bathtub dangled precariously from an upper storey.
A survivor – a woman wrapped in a foil blanket – was rushed away on a stretcher, followed a few minutes later by a body covered with a blanket.
“What can I say,” said a woman in her 30s, too distraught to give her name, sitting outside a badly damaged house a little further up the street. “This used to be my home. Now I have nothing.”
Luca Faccenda, 65, said he had lost a cousin. The quake was “stronger than any earthquake I’ve ever felt”, he said. His mother’s house, where he spent his childhood holidays, was badly damaged.
“Walking around, seeing everything destroyed like this ... It’s terrible,” he said. “Never in my life, at my age, did I expect to see something like this. It is very hard. Terribly hard. Impossible to comprehend.”
Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, said the priority over the coming days was to rescue any survivors. Renzi said Italy showed its true face in times of trouble: “No family, no city, no hamlet will be left alone.”
The leaders of both France and Germany, who spent Monday with Renzi at an EU mini-summit off Naples, offered their condolences and assistance.The leaders of both France and Germany, who spent Monday with Renzi at an EU mini-summit off Naples, offered their condolences and assistance.
President François Hollande said France would provide “all the help that might be necessary” after a “terrible tragedy”, while Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed “the deep sympathy of the German people”.President François Hollande said France would provide “all the help that might be necessary” after a “terrible tragedy”, while Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed “the deep sympathy of the German people”.
Pope Francis prayed for the victims and survivors with a crowd of tens of thousands gathered in St Peter’s Square in Rome for his general audience. “Hearing the mayor of Amatrice say the town no longer exists, that there are children among the victims, I am deeply saddened,” he said.Pope Francis prayed for the victims and survivors with a crowd of tens of thousands gathered in St Peter’s Square in Rome for his general audience. “Hearing the mayor of Amatrice say the town no longer exists, that there are children among the victims, I am deeply saddened,” he said.
News reports said the hospital in Amatrice had also been badly damaged and that patients had to be moved into the streets, where the air was thick with dust and smelled strongly of gas. The US Geological Survey measured the quake at 6.2 magnitude and put its epicentre near the Umbrian town of Norcia. Italy’s earthquake institute, INGV, registered it at 6.0 and said the epicentre was closer to Accumoli and Amatrice.
Television pictures showed entire buildings razed, debris of rocks and metal that had tumbled on to the streets and dazed residents huddled on squares and pavements. As many as 60 aftershocks, some measuring as strong as 5.5 on the Richter scale, continued through the morning. “Most earthquakes come from eight to ten kilometres below the ground,” said a local geologist, Manlio Faraoni. “This one was just 4km deep. That’s why the damage is so severe.”
“The whole ceiling fell but did not hit me,” resident Maria Gianni told the Associated Press. “I just managed to put a pillow on my head and I wasn’t hit luckily, just slightly injured my leg.” Amatrice is best known in Italy as the birthplace of the bacon-and-tomato pasta sauce that goes into spaghetti all’amatriciana and was full of visitors arriving for its annual festival celebrating the dish, due to have been held this weekend.
Another woman, sitting in front of her destroyed home with a blanket over her shoulders, said she did not know what had become of her family. “It was one of the most beautiful towns of Italy and now there’s nothing left,” she said. “I don’t know what we’ll do.” The town is made up of nearly 70 hamlets, some of which rescuers had yet to reach. “We’re doing everything we can,” the president of Rieti province, Giuseppe Rinaldi, said, surveying the devastation with a team of engineers and aid workers. “The whole province has been mobilised, everyone who can is here to help.”
Amatrice, best known in Italy as the birthplace of the bacon-and-tomato pasta sauce that goes into spaghetti all’amatriciana, is made up of nearly 70 hamlets, some of which rescuers had yet to reach. One visitor from Rome described the early-morning scene in Illica, a few kilometres north of Accummoli, as “like Dante’s Inferno. People crying for help. Rescue workers arrived after one hour ... one and a half hours.”
One visitor from Rome described the early-morning scene in Illica, a few kilometres north, as “like Dante’s Inferno. People crying for help, help. Rescue workers arrived after one hour... one and a half hours.” Later in the day, Guido Bordo, 69, sat wringing his hands in anguish in the same hamlet. “My sister and her husband are under the rubble, we’re waiting for diggers but they can’t get up here,” he told AFP.
“There’s no sound from them, we only heard their cats. I wasn’t here, as soon as the quake happened I rushed here. They managed to pull my sister’s children out, they’re in hospital now,” he added.
As many as 60 aftershocks, some measuring as strong as 5.5 on the Richter scale, continued through the day. “The whole ceiling fell but did not hit me,” one shocked resident, Maria Gianni, said. “I just managed to put a pillow over my head and I wasn’t hit, luckily – just slightly injured my leg.”
Another hard-hit town was Pescara del Tronto, where the main road was covered in debris and residents were digging their neighbours out by hand as emergency crews had yet to arrive.
Photos taken from the air by regional firefighters showed the town essentially flattened; Italy requested EU satellite images of the whole area to assess the scale of the damage.
Tourists on holiday in the region told the Guardian of their experiences. “The quake and at least one aftershock caused us to run out of the buildings in a panic,” said Nick Mortimer, one of a family of nine gathering for a 60th birthday celebration in nearby Amandola.Tourists on holiday in the region told the Guardian of their experiences. “The quake and at least one aftershock caused us to run out of the buildings in a panic,” said Nick Mortimer, one of a family of nine gathering for a 60th birthday celebration in nearby Amandola.
Renata Morioni, on holiday a few miles from Amatrice, said: “I felt a very strong shaking at about 3am … It went on for ages – then again about half an hour or 45 minutes later. Terrifying.”Renata Morioni, on holiday a few miles from Amatrice, said: “I felt a very strong shaking at about 3am … It went on for ages – then again about half an hour or 45 minutes later. Terrifying.”
The US Geological Survey measured the quake at 6.2 magnitude and put its epicentre near the Umbrian town of Norcia. Italy’s earthquake institute, INGV, registered it at 6.0 and said the epicentre was closer to Accumoli and Amatrice. Dr Mark Quigley, an active tectonics and geomorphology professor at the University of Melbourne, said about 13,000 people would have experienced severe ground shaking persisting for probably 10-20 seconds and another 230,000 would have felt very strong tremors.
Experts said the epicentre was relatively shallow at about six miles, making the surface damage more severe. Dr Mark Quigley said about 13,000 people would have experienced “severe ground shaking” persisting for probably 10-20 seconds and another 230,000 would have felt very strong tremors. “This earthquake is no surprise,” said Quigley. “This is one of the most seismically active parts of Italy.” He noted that six severe earthquakes had hit the region in the past seven centuries, including a series of three magnitude-six quakes in 1703 that killed an estimated 10,000 people.
“This earthquake is no surprise,” said Quigley, an active tectonics and geomorphology professor at the University of Melbourne. “This is one of the most seismically active parts of Italy.”
He noted that six severe earthquakes had hit the region in the past seven centuries, includingthree magnitude-6 quakes in 1703 that killed 10,000 people.
Italy’s deadliest earthquake since the start of the 20th century came in 1908, when a major tremor followed by a tsunami left an estimated 80,000 people dead in the southern regions of Reggio Calabria and Sicily.Italy’s deadliest earthquake since the start of the 20th century came in 1908, when a major tremor followed by a tsunami left an estimated 80,000 people dead in the southern regions of Reggio Calabria and Sicily.
As residents, civil protection workers and even priests dug through the rubble, calls went out for more equipment and helpers. “We need chainsaws, shears to cut iron bars, and jacks to remove beams: everything, we need everything,” Andrea Gentili, a civil protection worker, said. The national blood service appealed for donations to Rieti’s hospital. As residents, civil protection workers and even priests dug through the rubble, calls went out for more equipment and helpers.
“I don’t know what to say. We are living this immense tragedy,” said the Rev Savino D’Amelio, a parish priest in the hilltop village of Amatrice, a popular destination for Rome residents seeking cool mountain air in the hot summer. “We need chainsaws, shears to cut iron bars, and jacks to remove beams: everything, we need everything,” Andrea Gentili, a civil protection worker, said. The national blood service appealed for donations to Rieti’s hospital.
“We are only hoping there will be the least number of victims possible and that we all have the courage to move on.” “I don’t know what to say. We are living this immense tragedy,” said the Rev Savino D’Amelio, a parish priest. “We are only hoping there will be the least number of victims possible and that we all have the courage to move on.”
Pirozzi, the mayor, said access to the village was difficult. “There is a landslide on one road, a bridge is about to collapse on the other one,” he said. “We can hear voices under the rubble.” Pirozzi, the mayor, said poor access to the village was hampering operations. “There is a landslide on one road, a bridge is about to collapse on the other one,” he said.
The 2009 Aquila quake led to lengthy recriminations over lax building controls and the failure of authorities to warn residents that a quake could be imminent. The 2009 Aquila quake led to lengthy recriminations over lax building controls and the failure of authorities to warn residents a quake could be imminent. Volunteers from Aquila were among those who made their way to Amotrice on Wednesday to help however they could.
Standing by the roadside just outside the town waiting to be allowed in as survivors filed slowly past, some carrying plastic bags stuffed with belongings, others with their arms in slings, was Ludovia Baschinna, 18.
“I felt it at 3.30, felt the house shaking,” she said. “I was very afraid that it was happening all over again in Aquila. I lived through that earthquake in 2009 and I know what it feels like. So I thought it was just my responsibility today to come here and help out, to lend a hand.”
Stefano Prentera, a doctor, had come from Rome to help, setting up a small makeshift clinic on the edge of town. He said he had been working all day and had treated about 30 patients for minor and more serious injuries. “It’s a very dramatic situation,” he said. “A very difficult time for everyone.”