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Italy earthquakes: 'many dead' after avalanche hits hotel | Italy earthquakes: 'many dead' after avalanche hits hotel |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Up to 30 people are feared dead after an avalanche struck a hotel in a central Italian ski resort after a series of earthquakes. | |
About 20-30 guests had been staying at the Rigopiano hotel in the town of Farindola, in the lower Gran Sasso mountain range, when the avalanche struck on Wednesday night. | |
“Many are dead,” Antonio Crocetta, head of a team of Alpine rescuers in the Abruzzo region, said. No further details were available. | |
Rescuers managed to reach the hotel, located 1,200 metres above sea level, by ski amid treacherous weather conditions at about 4am. | |
The civil protection agency said on Thursday it was trying to get rescue vehicles to the stricken hotel through roads covered in snow. | |
Video footage shows rescuers digging through a wall of snow, and at least one man being led through the cleared path. | |
Two people, one suffering from hypothermia, had survived because they were outside of the building when the avalanche hit. | |
Giampaolo Parete, 38, had gone to collect something from his car, leaving his wife and children inside, the Ansa news agency cited him telling doctors. | |
The body of one victim has been removed from the building. | |
Central Italy was struck by four earthquakes on Wednesday, measuring between 5.1 and 5.7 magnitude. | |
A 82-year-old man died after the roof of a farm building in Castel Castagna, a town in the Abruzzo province of Teramo, collapsed on him. | |
A mother and her child were pulled from rubble in the same area, while the search for the 60-year-old man, buried under snow in nearby Campotosto, was called off on Wednesday night. | |
Three farmers are also reported to be missing. | |
The civil protection agency has warned of further avalanches, with its chief saying the situation remains critical. | |
“Bad weather and earthquakes in the same area have made it an extremely complicated situation,” Fabrizio Curcio said. “But a minute has not been lost and all the necessary rescue resources will continue to be put in place.” | |
The quakes struck close to Amatrice, one of the towns destroyed by an earthquake in August that left almost 300 people dead and thousands homeless. | |
The bell tower of the Sant’Agostino church, the last monument to survive last summer’s quake, collapsed after the first quake on Wednesday morning, according to local news reports. |