A minute of silence will be observed before all professional football matches in Italy this week to mourn the victims of an natural disaster that rocked the central part of the country early Wednesday.
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Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday tweeted that Embassy of India Rome (Italy) has informed her that there is no report of any Indian casualty after a massive natural disaster of 6.2 magnitude struck Italy.
The statement says he sends his condolences to the people of Italy.
Strong tremors woke residents in the capital Rome, some 170km from the epicentre of the quake, which occurred at 3.36am local time.
Reports from a number of villages and towns said that there are hundreds of people missing and dozens of wounded.
At least 38 people are now reported dead according to a spokeswoman from Italy’s Civil Protection authority.
“The town isn’t here anymore”, Amatrice Mayor Sergio Pirozzi told the Associated Press.
The mayor of Amatrice said his town has been devastated by the quake.
About an hour after the quake, a 5.5 magnitude aftershock hit the same area.
“The whole ceiling fell but did not hit me”, marveled resident Maria Gianni. ‘I just managed to put a pillow on my head and I wasn’t hit luckily, just slightly injured my leg’.
A spokeswoman for the fashion house said none of its employees were harmed by the magnitude 6.2 quake, which crumbled buildings in several remote villages about 100 kilometres northeast of the Eternal City, claiming at least 73 lives.
Civil protection workers began digging out as daylight broke, trying to reach any survivors. “We are living this vast tragedy”, said a tearful Rev. Savino D’Amelio, a parish priest in Amatrice. “There are deaths”, he told state-run RaiNews24. Another quake hit the northern Emilia Romagna region in May 2012, when two violent shocks 10 days apart left 23 people dead and 14,000 others homeless. The Rev. Fabio Gammarota told ANSA another three people were killed by a separate collapse.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake hit towns and villages in the mountainous heart of the country at a depth of 10 km about 11 km from Amatrice, a town of 2,000 people north of Italy’s Lazio region.
“I hope they don’t forget us”, he told Sky TG24.
At least 22 people are dead following the major natural disaster, which struck central Italy early in the morning on August 24, according to Italian media.
Fr Fortunato told the Italian news agency ANSA that the natural disaster woke all the friars, many of whom ran to the Basilica of St Francis.
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Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos sent his condolences to the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella for the death of tens of citizens after the natural disaster that hit central Italy, on the regions of Lazio and Umbria.
